


A Light Yet To Be Found

by DickBaggins



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Western, Bathtub Sex, Bottom Castiel, Closeted Dean, First Time Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, M/M, Past Lisa Braeden/Dean Winchester, Prostitution, Sheriff Dean, Top Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 08:44:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12077616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DickBaggins/pseuds/DickBaggins
Summary: Sheriff Dean Winchester takes great care of his little town of Alderson, a generally sleepy slice of the dusty west, save for a few train robberies and some cattle rustling, of late. When a dirty stranger rolls into town, the close-knit community starts to point fingers, and Dean finds himself arresting one Cas Novak, a drunk and gambler of no renown. When the richest rancher in the county decides on Novak as a convenient scapegoat, Sheriff Winchester finds himself protecting the stranger until he can get to the bottom of things. Luckily for Cas Novak, the Sheriff is a bit of a soft touch; unluckily for Cas, their attraction goes both ways. Maybe Dean needs him just as much as Cas needs the Sheriff, and not just to beat his bad reputation.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [Find the magnificent art by ricketyjukeboxer here!](http://ricketyjukeboxer.tumblr.com/post/165282822363/finally-my-first-forray-into-a-bang-cant-wait)

Cas Novak woke up on his horse again, the first time this week. It'd been dark when he fell asleep and he woke up to the blinding daylight, suffocating heat, and a bumpy trail underneath him. His head hurt too from all the rotgut whiskey, some of it still sloshing around in his bags. He tugged the drooping reigns with one hand and pulled his ragged brown hat down with the other.

He squinted at the sun, just after noon from how it hung in the sky, and of course his horse steered them right towards that ball of fire. Something black poked up out of the desolate landscape in front of him, pushing up like crooked teeth against the horizon. He'd missed all the markers on the way there indicating any settlements but it looked like a town. Cas slowed his horse with a tug and a gravelly command, and he hopped down to take a piss behind a bush. Not that the half-dead foliage provided much cover but not that he cared either way.

If it was a town, up ahead, there'd be more to drink at least. Something to get rid of his headache and the sandy grit in his mouth. He mounted up again and headed for it, a slow amble against a wide open sky.

* * *

 

Dean Winchester only just sat down to his lunch, a boxed lunch the widow Mrs. Connolly treated him to nearly every day since she'd come to town two weeks ago, when his only deputy nearly split the door apart flinging it open.

He looked around, blinking slowly in the cool dimness.

Dean coughed, nodding towards Mrs. Connolly sitting stiffly upright at the surplus table, and the deputy quickly took his hat off, worrying it between his hands.

“Sheriff, there's an awful ragged looking man just rode into town. Sent the school children running screaming, like they do, but even some of the saloon girls got up in arms. They're sayin' he's the spitting image of that poster? The one the Marshall's been circulating? Well, the saloon pretty near cleared out once he got in and sat down and - “

“Cleared out?” Dean winced at his full plate of hot food; roast beef and mashed up potatoes with some kind of root vegetable threaded all through it, and best of all, the widow's fragrant brown bread, real like he'd grown up with in Boston. He set his fork and knife down gently, giving Mrs. Connolly an apologetic look. “Why'd they clear out? This man do anything besides looking rough?”

“Well, no,” Deputy Fitzgerald started slow, “But, some of them girls are uncanny with faces, Sheriff, and - “

Dean silenced him with his raised hand and stood up, collecting his hat from his desk and tipping it at Mrs. Connolly. “Afraid you've got the deputy for company this afternoon, ma'am.”

“Jo, please. We've talked about this,” she rose as well, smiling sweetly as ever. “And it's no trouble, either of you are fine company.”

Dean wasn't even out the door before the deputy tucked into his lunch, nattering away idly at the woman. The sheriff fastened his gun belt around his waist, checked the barrel of the arm on his left hip and, satisfied, took his time walking to the saloon. The streets were empty but it was after noon after all; everyone took their breaks on the regular, together at the church or the schoolhouse, sometimes the saloon. These days, the ladies congregated at the brand new Hotel Alderson in an attempt to give it a good reputation. Their festive hats peeked out through the dusty window as he passed, and Dean kept his head down lest he be sidetracked with some other trivial complaint. Much as he looked forward to Mrs. Connolly's boxed lunches, he preferred not having to make polite conversation for hours on end, preferred his own company these days.

He crossed the hard dirt street, squinting up at the sky and making his way to the ramshackle saloon. One of the first buildings to go up in the once-tiny town of Alderson, it looked so too, leaning ever further to the left. The window didn't even shine with the afternoon sun, too covered in a decade's worth of a grime. The wide swinging doors fluttered the tiniest bit as a breeze kicked up and Dean just beat the dust wrath inside.

Sure enough, the saloon stood empty. A few girls leaned over the upstairs railings and Dean tipped his hat to them as he always did, despite occasional protestations on the necessity of such things. Ladies were ladies, no matter what they did for a living.

And not a one sat with the stranger at the bar. Unusual, as the girls usually fought tooth and nail over fresh meat.

The sheriff blinked as his eyes adjusted and he walked slowly over to the bar, boots stomping a little louder than he'd like. The stranger, looking like a muddy pile of laundry, half-turned his hunched shoulders and gave a nod, grumbling something to the bartender.

The bartender, a slightly less ragged looking man called Ol' Dave, chuckled at whatever he'd said. “Sheriff Winchester don't drink, son, and don't you waste your money trying to get him in the bag neither.”

Dean snorted a laugh and took a seat, a comfortable distance downwind from the dirty stranger. “Just a coffee, Dave, if you've got a pot on.”

Dave nodded and scurried away into the kitchen.

Dean puffed out a breath and looked sidelong at the stranger; dirt streaked his face and his hair clumped in swirls of an indistinct brownish color. He held a shot glass almost delicately between two fingers and up-ended it swiftly into his mouth.

The stranger turned to the sheriff slowly, blinking open bright blue eyes that trapped all the light of the room. “I thought all you law-types drank this far out.”

Dean opened his mouth before he knew what he wanted to say. With those lantern eyes searching his face, his brain came to a stop and his pulse quickened. He swallowed and gathered his thoughts; it felt like an awkward eternity before he spoke.

Dean let a smile creep across his face. “Too much to do to spend all day drinking,mister.”

The stranger eyed him a minute longer and forced out a rough laugh. “You look too delicate to be out here, if you don't my saying. Look like you belong out on some half-crooked beat in the city.”

He was probably already drunk. Most of the rough trade that passed through Alderson were at least somewhat polite, hat-tipping, even church-going. But this stranger drank whiskey like water and looked at Dean like...well, like the women did. Except they didn't possess eyes like _that_ or a thick two-week beard, and they certainly didn't call him delicate. Almost no one had been so bold, since he'd left the city.

Dean didn't know what to say. He cleared his throat and sat up straighter, watching the kitchen door instead of the stranger, even though he could still feel those eyes on him. “You don't look like you visit too many cities, to be honest.”

The stranger grunted and refilled his glass, tipped half the amber liquid down his throat and spoke again. “Born in Kansas City. That good enough? You think you're the only tenderfoot to make it out in the big bad world?”

Dean opened his mouth and closed it again, blinking at nothing. What in the hell was this stranger's problem? Did he want to get snatched up and prodded by the law? Maybe he didn't care. The sheriff glanced over again and the stranger craned his head, looking up at the ceiling, all sinewy neck, his throat bobbing, dirty skin made darker by all that stubble.

He did look familiar, in a vague sort of way.

The sheriff kept on staring, all part of the job, reaching into his pocket for a crumpled wanted poster. He smoothed it out onto the bar and frowned.

All these wanted posters looked the same. Some guy in a hat with a bandanna around his face, squinting hard and scarred up. This stranger in front of him had no scars that he could see. No bandanna hanging around his neck, not even stuffed into a pocket. Maybe if he had one, he wouldn't be half so dirty. Dean frowned deeper and slid the page across the clean bar, nodding once. “Marshall's got a bead out for a fella that robbed the train a couple weeks back and it comes down to me to ask about it. Especially new to town sorts. You know anything?”

“No,” the stranger rumbled out immediately. “Train's at least two days ride east, ain't it? I just came from...” He paused and wrinkled his brow, scratched at his cheek and slugged back the contents of his glass. “What's the name of that town with the saloon called the Piano Rose? That's about all I remember.”

“Duggansville,” Dean said. He glanced down at the wanted poster again. If only it showed more, like the mouth, the neck, then he'd be able to compare it better. But the survivors, such as they were, insisted the thieves wore masks. Of course they'd be masked, no one in their right mind would charge onto a train and start shooting up folks without hiding somehow. The sheriff flicked his gaze to the stranger's waist, checking for arms. He didn't carry any guns, just throwing knives and a big long dagger that picked up the light. “How'd you keep yourself safe in a rough town like Duggansville with nothing to shoot?”

“Had a nice pair,” the stranger grumbled, filling his short glass again. “Lost it. I am bad at poker and even worse at luck.”

Dean mulled this over as Dave came swooping out with a fresh pot of coffee and a tin mug. He left quickly, always knowing when to turn his head from the sheriff's business. A good bartender did that. Dean wondered a moment who kept bar at the Piano Rose, if Dave might know him and what good it'd do to send a message their way. Just to make sure a dirty stranger lost his guns at poker after all, to make sure he even passed through.

The stranger didn't seem to mind this lapse in conversation; he drank right through it.

Dean had trouble keeping his eyes focused elsewhere. He found something desperately alluring about the bob of the stranger's throat, about the stubble all up and down the length, about those long fingers cradling the glass like something special, something sacred.

It was his job, of course, to size people up. He expected the stranger was doing the same, if he was capable through the haze of whiskey that he was building. Dean slid over a seat, settled in beside the stranger and stuck his hand out.

“I'm Dean Winchester. I forget my manner sometimes, being so far out. Hope it's nothing you'll take too personal, being a city gentleman yourself and all.”

The stranger finished off another glass and took the sheriff's hand. His face split into an easy smile and his grip felt tough against Dean's hand, calloused and rough like he'd thrown his knives a thousand times. “Nothin' to take personal. Novak, Cas Novak. Bartender says you're the sheriff?”

“Yeah,” Dean pulled his hand back and tried not to blush; he couldn't get used to being called sheriff. It seemed worlds away, somehow, from detective. “Going on a year now.”

“You like it?”

Dean shrugged. He did; he loved the control and the power as much as anyone might. He loved the growing town and the responsibility but sometimes it all weighed a little heavy, seemed useless in the face of some of the harsher realities of frontier life.

He glanced down at the wanted poster again and drew himself up straighter on his stool, put his professional face back on. “It's my job. I take it seriously as any man would.”

“Good for you,” the stranger seemed to sneer while he poured another glass. He drank half and slammed it down on the poster, sloshing liquid over the side and running the printed ink. “Not one soul with a badge on in the last town asked me about this robbery here. I don't know a thing about it. Didn't even hear of the occurrence.”

Dean squinted into his black coffee; sometimes, rarely, he did hate being the sheriff, and the natural suspicions the job provided. He wished he could just sit down and have a nice drink, a nice talk with this man from out of town. But that wouldn't do. He sighed.

“Again, I mean nothing personal but I'd like to ask you a few questions.”

“About the train robbery?” The stranger looked at him with a raised eyebrow, those eyes shining like clear blue skies.

“Afraid so.”

“Ask away,” the stranger smirked and turned on his stool, openly facing the sheriff.

Dean gaped at him; this stranger, this Cas Novak, he didn't look much like a train robber. Ten thousand dollars gone and more in goods, and wouldn't he buy some new pants? Or at the very least, get his laundered? Why would he still be hanging out nearby, with all that cash? Dean steeled himself and did his job anyway.

“Two weeks ago, where were you?”

The stranger pursed his lips in thought and looked up at the ceiling again, his brow creasing. “Two weeks is a long damn time.”

The sheriff's throat constricted; two weeks since the robbery felt like fresh paint, like hours ago. Deputy Fitzgerald wiping off his sweaty forehead and handing the telegram over with his condolences. The flowers stinking up his house. And those unopened trunks still sat on the back porch, barely even dusty. And yet, two weeks was a long time?

Dean took a deep breath and stared straight at the stranger, trying his best to cast away the confusing storm of feelings. “Were you in a town? Doing any kind of work? Seeing anyone who might be able to put you anywhere?”

“Maybe,” the stranger finished the rest of his shot and reached for the bottle.

Dean got there first, pulling it just out of reach.

Cas stared at it, licking his lips. “I was further west than that town you said the name of before.”

“Duggansville.”

“Yeah,” he scratched the back of his neck, his eyes squinting into thin slits. “Did some work for a pig farmer but I don't recall the exact dates. Might have been just a week past.”

“And before that?”

“Before the pig farmer? Well...” Cas's mouth curved up into a smile and he looked to the ground. “You ever get to traveling north-west of Duggansville? Not so far as the mines, mind you, just about halfway?”

The sheriff wracked his brain but he couldn't place a town. Maybe it wasn't even a town. Ramshackle camps turned up all the time, tent cities and caravans circling up for a few weeks of rest. Unless something real bad went down, no one ever heard about these temporary abodes. He shook his head and nodded for Cas to continue.

His eyes glazed over with more than just drink, before he spoke again, and his voice cracked. “Shacked up there, anyhow. Don't think it even had a name. Mighty fine cat-house and I spent a week or two there. Maybe more.”

“Long time. Musta been quite the girl.”

The stranger looked away and scratched his rough beard, his fingers toying with the empty glass on the bar. He hunched forward, away from Dean, and closed himself up.

“She got a name, in case we need to check up on you?”

Cas looked sidelong at Sheriff Winchester, his eyes glinting like diamonds. “Buddy.”

It all took a second to process. Dean first pictured the ugliest whore he could think of, worthy of the rough cattle-driver's nickname but then, he got it. His face flared up with head and his eyes sought the comforting depths of his black coffee. He promptly forgot his entire line of questioning.

So Cas was a Mary, so-called, and didn't they usually keep themselves cleaner? Dean thought back to Boston, to the informants his first partner stirred up. All fine dressed men doing the work of girls, of prostitutes. They all had such pretty eyes, hair combed _just-so_ , casting flirtatious winks at him. Sometimes, if it hadn't been for Lisa, wouldn't he have indulged, just a little?

No, no. Not Dean.

He squared his shoulders, cleared his throat, and did his best to continue.

“And this...Buddy, being of sound mind, would be able to give credence to your story?”

“No,” Cas growled, looking desperately at the whiskey bottle, just out of reach. “Dead.”

Dean frowned; he didn't know whether to mutter condolences or leave the matter but the former won out. He poured another drink for the stranger but kept the bottle on his side of the bar. Just then, his lawful side jabbed him in the stomach with more questions he didn't want to ask. He winced and slugged back some coffee.

“Gotta ask - “

“Woke up and he was stabbed.” Cas took the next drink slower, sipping it like tea. “Right in the doorway, with me in bed.”

Dean blew out a hard breath, shaking his head. He'd hauled men in for less in Boston, seen them convinced on the flimsiest of evidence, and here, this sour drunk with some kind of _past_ , some kind of history, he wanted to let go. No one would question him for bringing this man in.

“You get who did it?”

“Nope. Don't know. Kinda don't wanna know.” The stranger's answers got more clipped and wasn't that a sign? He finished off the whiskey and sighed through his nose. “Rough kinda camp. Coulda been anyone.”

“With you right there?” Dean twisted his mouth around. Something wasn't right about any of this.

Cas let out a rough chuckle from the back of his throat, and it sounded painful. “You're watchin' me drink, Sheriff. You think I end most days with much lucidity? Coulda been a whole band of outlaws clomped in and stabbed Buddy and I woulda snored through the whole damn thing.”

Dean frowned so hard his face hurt. He swore under his breath and shook his head. “I'm gonna take you in.” He slid slow off his stool and dug in his pockets for the old handcuffs he'd bought himself, second-hand, flicking them open. He felt out of practice, a tiny rock of nervousness planted I his belly. He hoped Cas would go peaceably.

Cas Novak chuckled again and hunched further over the bar. “Figured.” But he made no move to comply.

Dean frowned deeper, the lines setting into his face, starting to etch him a permanent scowl. He sidled up behind Cas, resting a big hand on his dusty shoulder and squeezing. “Let's do this easy, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, alright,” the stranger muttered. He backed up, slid awkwardly down, pressing hard against the sheriff. He quickly lost his footing and sprawled forward against the bar.

“Easy, c'mon,” Dean tried to help, looping an arm around Cas's chest, trying to haul him up.

But Cas Novak had other ideas, clearly.

He huffed out a breath and pushed himself right back against Dean, tipping his head back so far it rested on the sheriff's shoulder. “Don't much like it the easy way,” Cas dropped his voice, rough and low.

Dean's heart doubled pace with Cas pressed into him and the nerves in the pit of his stomach turned to something different, a low heat creeping up his spine and fogging his brain. _God_ but it felt good having a warm body against him. Underneath those grubby layers, Cas felt strong. And the way his head tilted back, his glassy eyes blinking slow and his wide mouth slacking open in a smile that looked almost contented? Dean's breath hitched in his chest before he did anything else. He felt pinned down and tricked.

He shoved with his chest and pressed a hand into Cas's back, sending him bending over the bar.

Cas just laughed again.

Laughed, even as Dean collected his hands behind him and cuffed him, hauled him up and pushed him out in a slow, stumbling walk.

“Hoped it'd end this way,” Cas slurred, unceremoniously backing up into the sheriff.

Dean said nothing, set his mouth in a firm line and marched his charge all the way to the sheriff's office.

By the time they made it there, half the town turned out to watch and the other half heard before the afternoon finished. That was the way of things, in such a small town.

* * *

 

“Did he look dangerous?” Jo asked, folding her used plate in a cloth and tucking it back in her picnic basket. “The man, at the saloon,” she prompted, when Deputy Fitzgerald fixed her with a stone face.

“Dangerous? Nah. Like a wild man, yeah. Doesn't hurt to check up on sorts like that.”

“Hm, right,” Jo hummed. Her cumbersome black skirts swished on the way to the sheriff's desk, and she picked up the second plate of food. “What did he look like, then?”

The deputy stared at her still, blinking in an attempt to size her up, like men always seemed to when she asked curious questions. After a moment, he nodded, a smile stretching across his face. “Surviving that robbery gave you a taste for danger, huh? You been reading those penny stories from the general store too, I bet.”

As excuses went, it wasn't terrible. She smiled meekly at him, forcing a flush to glow in her cheeks. “Something like that.”

“Grief turns folks strange,” Deputy Fitzgerald ruminated aloud, “Like the sheriff. Why, if I didn't know about his losses, I don't think I'd be able to peg it from the way he acts. Like nothing ever happened. Course, mourning just ain't the same for menfolk.”

“Yes, well,” Jo grumbled, hooking the basket around her black-clad arm, “Society gives us different roles and it's important to adhere to them. I didn't relish having all my things dyed black, but here we are. Now, the man?”

“Ah. Dirty. Dark-haired, beard, knives around his waist.”

“No guns?”

“Not a one.”

“Isn't that strange?”

“Lots of men don't carry firearms,” Deputy Fitzgerald shrugged, leaning back in the sheriff's chair, tipping it so far, it nearly brushed the wall.

“Men traveling overland?”

“He had knives, Mrs. Connolly, like I said. What's it matter, anyway?”

“Oh, you know. I just want to get a feel for this ruffian.”

The deputy gave her a knowing wink and she passed by him, stepping out into the sunlight. As she did, so did others, popping out of the hotel, the general store. A few of the whores from the saloon came out on the balcony.

Jo shielded her eyes with her black gloved hand and finally spotted the commotion; the sheriff marched down the sidewalk with someone in tow. This had to be the stranger; dirty and bearded and weaving even as the sheriff tried to steady him.

Not until they were a few feet from the sheriff's office did Jo recognize him fully and she swore under her breath, quickly ducking into the alley and beyond, her heart pounding as she ran behind the town's main street towards her rented house just off of it; the stranger being hauled into jail was, unmistakably, Cas Novak.


	2. Chapter 2

Cas Novak passed right out in the small cell, luckily on the cot and not the hard floor. Hours ticked by uncounted and he slept through most of the argument swirling on around him. Only when the voices reached fever pitch did he come to.

Someone shouted about _legal rights_ and _the lawful way to do things_ and someone countered with _justice_ and _do you know who I am_.

The sheriff' voice rose distinctly above it all, his faint New England brogue clashing with the flat American accents. “Whatever rumors you heard can be addressed tomorrow. I brought this man in to sleep it off. Nothing more.”

“Well, isn't that convenient, seeing as he's the spitting image of the man everyone's after? To say nothing of how many head of cattle I have newly missing, as of this morning.”

“I'll file a report - “

“You'll see that man hanged!”

A chair scraped back and the sheriff's voice swam in closer to the cell. “Mr. Mayweather, this man is a drunk. That's it. Come tomorrow, we'll get this all figured out. If that's all your business concluded, you'll have to take your leave.”

“Leave nothing!” The American voice shouted and he banged something – a cane? - on the floor.

Oh, it hurt, absolutely pounded in Cas's head like a whole pack of horses running him over. “Keep it down,” he groaned, utterly without thought, “Man's trying to get some sleep in here.”

“You keep it down,” the sheriff called back.

Cas chuckled to himself and finally opened his eyes to the blissful dark, in soothing contrast with the relentless redness of his headache. The ceiling hadn't yet started spinning around, which was always a good sign. He swung his legs around and sat up, groaning, wishing he hadn't. Now the room swam and twisted, just a tiny bit, just enough to make him snap his eyes shut again and sink his aching head into his hands.

“I demand to speak with that man,” the cane thumped loud on the floor again and the voice loomed a little closer. There were other footsteps too; one set, two? Hard to tell and Cas didn't want to open his eyes again, didn't want to move. His stomach lurched complaints and the blood drained from his face. And then, “We don't want any trouble, sheriff.”

Which meant they wanted trouble. They wanted _him_ , to scapegoat all their misfortunes on a drifter and call it a day.

Cas Novak weighed his options. He could go back to sleep and let all this resolve itself in a peaceful manner, which he really hoped would happen. But, he was up, once he was up, he was up. Well, mostly. Option the second involved stumbling to his feet and defending himself, back-talking whoever these gentlemen were. Option the second would land him in a heap more trouble and not just with these men, but the sheriff, too. So, no.

Option number three would have to do.

Cas hauled himself up with a groan and shuffled to the front of the cell. He stuffed his hands through the bars and leaned against them, half to keep himself upright and half because they felt cool against the heat rising in his face. Snakes churned in his gut.

“Sheriff, if I may?” he grumbled, eyeing the clearly perturbed collection of well-dressed men.

They looked so clean, city-clean and rich enough that they probably didn't even care about the missing cattle. Wouldn't break them. So why all this fuss? Some folks were just blood-thirsty. The apparent leader, the one with the cane, shot the sheriff a look and bustled past him, positioning himself just out of Cas's reach.

“Are you ready to confess to your crimes?”

Cas squinted at him, tried to take in his looks but even up close, he appeared nondescript, boring, plain white in a plain brown suit. Muddy eyes, lank hair, like every greedy rich man Cas had ever met out here. It was in the eyes, something beady and shining like he didn't give two shits about anyone or anything unless it behooved him.

Cas opened his mouth to shoot something back, something very witty, but before he could stop it, before he even knew what was happening, everything he'd ate and drank in the last day rushed up in a hot tide and spilled out of his mouth, right onto the rich man's suit, his shoes, splashing onto the floor.

But _god_ he felt better for it, wiping his mouth on his sleeve with a grin. His stomach settled and his vision relaxed back to normal. Except for the burn in his nose and his eyes, in the back of his throat, he felt like a brand new man. Funny what a good toss could do for a guy.

Everything else broke into commotion; the rich man jumped back and swore, his companions rushed forward, whipping out handkerchiefs and standing dumbfounded because the mess exceeded a few little squares of cotton.

And Sheriff Winchester held in laughter. His eyes crinkled up and he clapped his hand over his face, his shoulders shaking.

“This is not over,” one of the rich man's companions shouted.

“Yeah, alright,” the sheriff sputtered out. He took a deep breath and tried to regain some kind of composure but started laughing again straight away, his mouth stretching into a grin that Cas couldn't take his eyes off of. He lit up the whole room.

The sick-soaked man stopped in the doorway, stomping his cane one last time, his eyes fixing on the sheriff. “We'll come for him, Winchester. I will raise a mob and we will burn him alive in this lean-to you call an office. Or else we'll blow down a wall and haul his ass out and hang him up in the middle of town. Mark my words, Winchester.”

Cas watched the sheriff turn, mirthful to serious in a heartbeat. He pulled himself up straight and his hand went to his gun automatically, but he didn't draw. He took a big step forward and _god_ , he looked so huge, filling up the space in front of the intruders and staring them down. Even from Cas's vantage, his stance looked imposing and heat rose in Cas's stomach that had nothing to do with the hangover.

The sheriff didn't say a thing. He didn't have to.

The men threw no more idle threats and moved; the sheriff stood his ground for a long time and then left, without a word.

Strange.

Cas blinked at the dark doorway; nighttime outside already. And he had a foul taste in his mouth and a pile of vomit in front of him, alone in the cell, and the warmth in his gut twisted into panic. What if the sheriff just left him? Left him to the cats and the posse, to mob justice? He started to sweat, a second away from screaming when Sheriff Winchester came back in with a bucket full of water and a grin on his face.

“I guess I should thank you,” he told Cas, moving closer but edging around the filthy floor. He jangled his key-ring out and opened the squeaky cell door. He laughed again, low and pleasing, slightly melodic. “That ran 'em out fast, didn't it?”

Cas eyed the open door suspiciously and the sheriff more so as he moved off and came back with a mop. He stuck it through the open door and nodded at the mess.

“You want me to clean that up?” Cas said slowly, “I'm no maid.”

Sheriff Winchester rolled his eyes, stepping into the cell and thrusting the mop into Cas's hands. “Clean it up or I'll make you sleep here with it all night.”

“Right,” Cas grumbled, gripping the rough handle. He kept his eyes on the sheriff. He still looked amused, his green eyes crinkling at the corners, his face relaxed in an easy smile. “You mean to say you've got designs on taking me somewhere?”

“Well, it's not safe here. Clean up your mess and I'll tell you.”

Cas raised an eyebrow. He stared long enough to feel that pleasant heat twist in his gut again, same way it had when the sheriff had him up against the bar, blanketed with his thick body. Cas didn't remember much about the afternoon, but he sure as hell remembered that. Probably not a good idea to make eyes at a lawman but then, most of them didn't look like this. Most of them weren't half so kind either.

So Cas mocked a salute at Dean and veered past him, brushing too close just to see what he'd do.

The sheriff's smile fell a bit and he straightened himself up taller, eyes passing darkly over Cas. He stepped back and cleared his throat, muttering, “Just mop the floor,” before he moved off, perching himself on a desk.

Cas's head still pounded but he whistled while he worked; it wouldn't be a bad trade off, he figured, cleaning up his own mess to spend the night somewhere besides the musty cell.

He'd done better for worse.

* * *

 

No one much came inside Dean Winchester's house, but it was nice enough. The dusty path up to the front door stood half-swept, and two chairs rocked gently on the porch, in case he needed them.

But the better path, the quieter, at least, went direct from the sheriff's office to his back door. His charge seemed nervous at first, understandably; he was also ill, pale-faced and dealing with death threats but for all that he seemed chipper enough. The slow walk behind the main street threw him right off, at least until they arrived at Dean's back door.

“This your place?” Cas stopped at the back porch, craning his neck up, clearly impressed by the second story.

“It is,” Dean muttered in answer, shuffling his hat off and rubbing at the back of his neck. “It's alright.”

Cas glanced over his shoulder and rolled his bright eyes. “It's a palace.”

Dean sputtered out a laugh and shook his head. Any kind of praise usually set him embarrassed and it was worse with Cas, somehow. At least the dark hid the hot flush creeping on his cheeks. He brushed past Cas, unlocking the door with one of the keys he kept around his waist. “You've been living rough too long, I think.”

Cas raised an eyebrow and smirked but otherwise declined to answer.

Dean regretted what he'd said; some men didn't have a choice, especially given his predilections. Some men couldn't help it, had to stick to the fringes of society. Without a job, without a house and a community around him, Dean wondered if he might fall the same way.

He opened the door with a scrape along the floorboards that held grime no matter how much he swept there. He wished they were quietly sometimes, creaking occasionally, something that might give him away should it come to some kind of residential standoff. He didn't like thinking that way but well, wasn't he transporting a possible criminal, secretively, in the early night, into his very house? He had to think like that.

“So you take the back way home all the time? Got quite a path beat.” Cas asked, still inspecting the outside of the house before he bent to the dusty trunks in the far corner of the porch. “You're not still packed out here, are you? Cause you seem like the settling kind, woulda figured...Mrs. Lisa Win – oh.”

Dean sighed out of his nose and cleared his throat impatiently. Not going to deal with it now. Going to ignore it, the way he always did when he noticed those trunks. “I can put some coffee on,” he prompted, loud enough to startle Cas towards the door. “Got a stove, if you're hungry.”

Cas shrugged one shoulder, staring into the pitch black of the house. Dean closed the door behind him and lit up the oil lamp from the shelf he'd nailed up. Probably wasn't the best idea to hand Cas the flame, but he did it anyway and motioned for him to follow.

The back hall led to the kitchen, which took up most of the house. Dean liked it that way, comfortable and warm. He had a half-cellar built into one side, dug the hole himself, and there was the stove he was so proud of too. Not everyone got a stove inside but he'd built everything around it. He set it roaring quickly, stuffing the grate with kindling.

“That was a yes for the food? Nothing fancy, got some bacon and beans, some greens - “

“Actually,” Cas sighed out, so forlorn that Dean turned from the coffee, just set-up. Cas leaned in the doorway, face drawn in a frown that stretched his wide mouth thin. “I would be more obliged if you had some whiskey.”

Dean stared at him, his eyes getting used to the dim indoors, but Cas looked all alight from the lamp, shining orange on his sad face. His eyes cast down, embarrassed to even ask. “I don't, I'm afraid,” Dean explained, quiet, turning back to his stove. And then back around again. “I don't drink, see, on account of my father being what they called 'dipsomaniac', back then.”

They fell into quiet with Cas still staring at the ground, at his boots, at the lamp in his hand. Then he finally moved into the kitchen, tugging out a chair and sitting down with a heaved sigh. “So you'd be familiar, sheriff, with the general disease. And the effects of withdrawal and such.”

“I would,” Dean told him, grimly. One hand clenched beside him while the other gripped at the coffee pot, just starting to heat up pleasantly under his palm. “Your malady is so advanced that you feel poorly without it?”

Cas forced out a dry chuckle, setting the lamp on the adjacent chair, finally taking his hat off and scrubbing his hands through his almost-clean hair; he'd managed half a wash in the jail and looked less grimy for it, at least. “Poorly to start. There's much discontent. Trembling and so forth.”

“Hallucinations, shouting, violence to follow,” Dean rhymed off the rest, “General episodes of vanished memories, strange notions. Not to mention swindling, should you not have enough drink, or the money to buy it. Yes, I am familiar.”

“Your father ever recover?”

“My father died in a gutter.” He didn't say more; he wanted to, he wanted to spill everything. His father stumbling out of jail and falling to rest right outside the police station, dying there while detectives and officers alike spat on him. He wanted to spit out that he'd left his step-mother a widow with three children and Dean, at ten, the oldest. The debts he'd had to repay, the stories his mother spouted at the teetotaler meetings she favored after. There was too much there to even start, so he didn't say a thing.

Dean just stared at Cas, grim still. Maybe his face looked like that sober, naturally, morose and unhappy.

And then Dean remembered the sour-faced woman that headed the church choir, how she'd given him a bouquet of flowers with a quart of whiskey stuffed between them and how weird he'd thought it when she winked at him. He didn't realize until later what it was over.

His face set just as grim while he looked Cas over again. “Actually, I do have a bottle of something.” He held up his finger and went into the parlor, the sitting room, whatever polite folk called it these days. He swept past flowers in various states of decay, ignoring them all on his way to the clandestine whiskey. He hefted it out of the crumbling lilies and noticed the label on the back of the bottle, a florid script with a bible verse that made him laugh out loud on his way back to the kitchen.

* * *

 

“ _Let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more_ ,” Dean's low, sweet voice recited as he sauntered back into the kitchen, reading off a dark brown bottle that made Cas's mouth absolutely water. “That is apparently from Proverbs.”

“Sounds like us, though. Miseries to forget.”

Dean didn't say anything.

Cas knew he could prod and get him to spill the sad story about the dusty trunks and the dead flowers he'd peeked at through the doorway, and he knew it wouldn't be too hard. Already, the sheriff seemed at a strange sort of ease with him. Cas didn't quite have the whole read on him yet, but give him an hour and he would.

The sheriff portioned out whiskey into a tin cup. Cas watched with intense interest, his throat constricting at the light amber flow, his pulse racing at the sound of it trickling in, splattering loud in the cup. His palms itched. He sweated. Everything slowed down; the sheriff turning, frowning, handing Cas the cup, rubbing at the back of his neck with the other hand and looking down into the unsteady liquid.

Cas's hands slid around it, brushing at the cool tin and bumping into the sheriff's. He looked when when Dean did and his breath hitched, whether whiskey anticipation or the suddenness of the dark green eyes in front of him, he couldn't figure. “Thank you for the moral compromise,” Cas smirked, abruptly leaning back in his chair and staring again at the whiskey. Much easier to stare at that although strangely, less satisfying than usual.

“Well now, this is church whiskey,” Dean straightened up, shrugging off his coat and hanging it by the doorway. He unbuttoned his vest and slung off the gun belt too, letting it hang beside everything else.

“Church whiskey,” Cas repeated, taking a sniff.

It burned at his nostrils and he couldn't wait any longer. He tipped the cup and tasted it, bitter and rich on his tongue, subtly different than what he'd had in the saloon earlier. Just as strong and a little unique. He swallowed it with his eyes sinking shut. It burned down his throat, blossomed all in his chest like all the other whiskey in the world.

After a pleasant minute to himself, Cas remembered he wasn't alone, it wasn't just him and the drink, and he opened his eyes to find the sheriff staring. “My regards to your church, sheriff,” he said, smiling, “You could join me in it, just for a taste or two. To, what was it? Forget your poverty and remember your misery no more? Seeing as it's church whiskey.”

Dean looked distressed, his face creasing in a frown while he crossed back to the stove. “I am charged with keeping a clear head about me, as per the job,” he muttered, taking up a kitchen knife, chopping at some bacon. But he kept glancing over his shoulder at Cas and at the whiskey on the table in turns. He went quiet while he dumped the chunks of bacon into a heavy pot and stirred it around.

Cas drank. He tried to go slow, not wanting to squander the sheriff's charity but he itched to tip back the whole cup and swallow it down. The first drink usually went like that.

“What if Mr. Mayweather comes back?” Dean turned fully to Cas, brandishing a wooden spoon. “What if he manages to raise all those folks he warned about, and I'm languishing around drunk somewhere?”

Cas paused with the cup at his lips, frowning over it. “Well. You've got a deputy, don't you?”

“Of course. I wouldn't call him quite ready for action.”

“Gotta be tested sometime, don't he?”

“I suppose.”

“Anyway, one drink won't render you incapable.” Cas swigged the rest back, sighing happily at the bottom of the cup. He considered the bottle, re-reading the flowery script. Now that was a phrase to remember. He liked it. “In fact, I've heard one drink, a singular serving, I mean, can sometimes improve a person's outlook greatly.” He shrugged, pouring from the heavy bottle into his little cup, mouth watering anew at the sound, the color, the whole goddamned spectacular show.

“And you have how many drinks, on average? Does that improve your outlook any?”

Cas chuckled. “We aren't talking about me, sheriff, we're talking about you. I would not count myself among casual drinkers, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Dean shot back, frowning over his shoulder again. He cut up an onion next, but Cas saw his eyes stray back to the bottle.

No good could come of tempting him like this. He seemed like a good man. Cas knew the sheriff already indulged him more than he deserved but his nature said push, push and push until nothing remained to push at. It was self-destructive as hell but there was no end in sight.

Still, he felt elated when Dean wordlessly grabbed the bottle and splashed some into another cup, heedless and even a little angry, briefly glancing at Cas while he did it. “Now we can forget our miseries together, I suppose,” Dean muttered.

Cas grinned, he couldn't help it. His wide mouth stretched happily and he hopped up, clumsily smacking his tin cup against Dean's in the warm, close quarters of the kitchen. “I will see to it that you don't overindulge, of course,” he promised, very seriously, laying a hand on the sheriff's broad shoulder.

They toasted and they drank and Cas did not keep his promise.

* * *

 

Dean could not remember how they'd ended up on the floor of the kitchen, under the window, beside the stove. The warmth, maybe. A nice, pleasant warmth at first but now? His upper lip and his forehead beaded sweat. He rammed the oven door shut with his elbow, closed the grate and sat back against the wall again.

The man crammed next to him did not appear to sweat at all. No, Cas Novak grinned at him, peacefully happy with the bottle clenched in his fist, rising up to his mouth.

Dean's eyes caught on his fingers not for the first time; long and warm, just as tanned as the rest of him. He threw knives, Dean remembered, blinking slow, imagining those deft fingers gripping at a knife handle, sending one flying. He could do it too, of course, but it only gave him more appreciation.

“You think we could get your knives back?” Dean blurted out, turning his head so his cheek rested on the wall.

“You took 'em. You're the sheriff,” Cas answered, his arm falling down, “Couldn't you just get 'em back?”

“Wait,” Dean narrowed his eyes, “It was your guns got taken.”

“Everything gets taken,” Cas sighed out of his nose, eyes cast on the floor, bringing up the bottle again.

Dean remembered just then, about the so-called limiting of their indulgences and he wrestled the bottle away easily, setting it on the other side of himself. Cas didn't protest. Dean frowned when the words actually hit him, too in sync with his actions, setting his face in the same grim expression as his charge.

“That is a fact,” he agreed, thinking on the trunks, the dead flowers. It seemed so far away until now. It always seemed far away until he started thinking about and what use was thinking about it, anyway? Just made it worse, made it too close and too fresh. Two weeks. Two weeks could be an eternity. Two weeks and he should have those train robbers by now.

“I must have pieces of myself scattered all around. Guns, boots, knives, skin and bones.” Cas ruminated.

“And we mark time in years instead, don't we? Years and miles. Should mark it in losses.”

Quiet dawned for a few minutes; they were both thinking on the subject and then Dean found himself thinking about Cas in a rush he couldn't stop. He came from a city and yet he traipsed around out west like a ragged nomad, losing himself. But he was so calm, so casual and amiable. Too amiable. Maybe he really had something to hide, knew more than he let on. Or maybe he jut rolled with the punches, after so long. Dean pegged them of a similar age, especially with the dirt scrubbed away. His eyes looked young, though, vibrant even in the dim of the kitchen, as bright as they'd been back at the saloon. Dean guessed they always looked like that.

Dean got caught staring.

“You aren't bad yourself,” Cas whispered across the closeness, his mouth less of a smile now but kindness still written on his face.

“Stop,” Dean chuckled out, dropping his head. He felt himself blushing – honestly blushing – and it made him blush even more. But he smiled too, felt it tugging uncontrollably at the corners of his mouth. “I told you, I never drank. It's got me all strange.”

“It's got you honest,” Cas said, simply, rolling his head away to stare up at nothing, at the old kitchen table and the ceiling.

Dean was glad he was no longer the target of those eyes, at least. He puffed out a sign of relief and craned his head likewise, to stare at the patterns in the wood, at nothing. “I am always honest. I'm a sheriff.”

“Honest law-wise, sure, but there's a kinship to our natures.” Cas rolled his head back around and Dean felt the eyes again, icy-warm beams of light trained right on him. It made him squirm. “I think you can agree on that as a source of dishonesty.”

Dean swallowed and looked to the floor. He brushed dirt off his pants, glanced away sidelong. He wanted to agree but agreeing to it out loud was different. Too much. Something you didn't come back from and he wasn't in the business of telling strangers all about himself, not in those terms.

“But you were honest about it,” Dean cleared his throat and looked to Cas again, hoping he could defend against his gaze. “Nearly right away. You didn't have to be.”

“I was drunk.”

“Even if you weren't.”

“Probably, yeah, I woulda mentioned it, considering the questions you asked. What's the difference? I'd get in a heap of trouble either way, that wouldn't change. It's a sad story no matter what the dead body's got between their legs.”

“I didn't mean - “

“To bring it up, but you did. See, sheriff, you gotta watch what you say around me. I'm very sharp.” Cas narrowed one eye and pressed at his forehead with two fingers, before huffing out a rough laugh and looking away. When he glanced back over, his eyes looked hard around the edges. “So. Mother, sister, wife?”

Dean blinked slow, feeling the oppressive heat of the room again. He swiped at his forehead with his sleeve to catch the sweat, rolling both sleeves up afterwards. “Pardon?”

“Trunks,” Cas jerked his head towards the back porch; Dean caught his eyes wandering towards the guarded whiskey bottle and pretended he didn't notice.

He never wanted to mention it to another soul as long as he lived, not after the way it happened nor the fuss the entire town made. After his promise to the Marshall. Things started to feel back to something like normal and now, he had to talk about it?

No. He didn't have to.

“No business of yours.”

“Don't be like that,” Cas drawled, staring still. Dean had never felt someone's stare so acutely. “Two trunks, dusty from being out the porch like that, all uncovered. Little bit of water damage. Smaller one's got a bullet hole. They got labels from the local train company, same one as I assume was hijacked, am I right? Got your last name on it too.”

Dean frowned, his jaw clenching reflexively, angry. He'd get up, if he thought he could, but with nowhere to go, he stayed put. He felt like Cas would tag along like a puppy anyway, if he left.

“So that's why I ask, mother, sister, or wife? Mind you, sister's probably out, as it does say 'Missus' but could be you were charged with a sister in law.”

Dean finally got up and he took the bottle of whiskey with him, slugging down a burning mouthful on his way to the table. He grabbed a chair and spun it around, clumsy and mad, thumping the bottle down on the table. He looked out the window above Cas instead of at him; easier that way. He took another drink before the words came out, and Lord, but that made him feel too much like his father. Too much to bear.

“Wife, alright?” he said, grimly determined to get it over with. “Finally decides to join me out here. Two years, mark you, that I was out here with her back east. She kept saying it wasn't safe. And I'd give her statistics, such as we used to use back in Boston. But numbers don't mean shit at the end of it. You know? They just make us feel better, is all.”

Cas nodded, content to stay on the floor; it was easier to talk to him all splayed out lazy like that.

“So,of course, yeah, train gets robbed the second it rolls into the county. Course it does, right? Two years of convincing, all for nothing.”

The drifter didn't say a word but his eyes shone misty, face crumpling like a kicked puppy. He'd had enough of condolences anyway, he didn't need to hear them from a stranger.

“Baby, too. Three years old. She wrote he looked like me, like his daddy and all I got's a picture to see. How's that for miserable, huh?”

“It's horrible,” Cas muttered, frowning deep.

Dean felt uncorked at long last, recklessly continuing since Cas had no designs on stopping him. “You say what you might about our shared kinship but I am telling it to you straight, Novak, I loved her. From the second we met, from every second after that. She was the exception, you can say, to my nature. The only woman, and I built this house up for her, thought every step of the way about what she's like. Made the doors wide enough for her skirts, see?” He nodded to the kitchen doorway, watching Cas drowsily follow his lead and nod back. “Put a cold cellar in the kitchen, over there, so she wouldn't have to go outside. Built up a washing room, right beside here, for the tub. Nice and warm, near the kitchen. I build us a bed, too, fit for royalty. Now I can't even sleep there.”

“So where...where d'you sleep?”

“Chesterfield.”

“Chester _what_?”

“Sofa.”

“Lord help you, New England,” Cas pronounced in an overly stuffy way, breaking into an easy laugh. “Even naming things, you gotta do it the hard way.”

“I cannot take credit for the name, Cas.”

“Well, good. Stupid name,” Cas said. “Hey. What were we...talkin' about here?”

Dean knew; he knew just what they'd been opining on and he decided enough was enough. He hadn't spoken so much to anyone and he'd had his fill of honesty and forthrightness.

“I cannot seem to recall,” he said, staring at the ceiling, his throat swallowing dry so he had to take another drink. Just the one. Definitely the last one.

“Just as well,” Cas sighed, and Dean noticed his sidelong glance, like he remembered too but it wasn't worth bringing it up again. Thank their manners for that. “I am bone tired, sheriff. Wouldn't mind having a lay-down on that _chesterfield._

“Then where'm I gonna sleep?” Dean squinted in thought.

“Got that bed upstairs. Take it for a test drive.”

Dean said no, in his heart and his mind but nothing came out of his mouth. Not a thing.

And then Cas stood up with his back to the wall and extended down a hand. Dean tipped his head up and up to look and how did every angle make Cas look like a dream? If only Dean had met him some other way, instead of arresting the poor soul.

But that wasn't a reasonable wish. To meet him when? To do what? They couldn't have anything more a quick romp, a few days of fun. The someone would move on and being that he lived on the road something permanent, that'd be Cas. And Dean would be here, alone again in his big house full of dust and dreams.

He took Cas's hand and wobbled to his feet. Everything looked lovely, shiny and wonderful and nothing captured that more than Cas's crystal blue eyes. Hadn't they been dark velvet earlier? Why did they shine like that now?

Dean's heart raced, hyper-aware of his hand against Cas's, born worn and warm and Dean couldn't remember the last time he'd had so much contact with one person. He stared again, couldn't help it again.

This already felt like a bad habit.

Cas's other hand slipped up onto Dean's cheek, rustling softly, callouses against his day or so of scruff. If he let it go any longer, it'd be gingery and full, but he never did.

“Cas,” Dean said just to say it, to feel the hard start and the vowel sigh and the sweet release at the end. He licked at his bottom lip, a dart of his tongue but he watched Cas watching and Lord, that was a sight.

Dean couldn't rightly say who moved first; he preferred to think they moved in a sort of tandem but whatever the case, they drew close together, foreheads touching and hands pressed together too. Then, mouths.

Dean shut his eyes at the beginning, meaning to drown everything out but it had the opposite effect. He wasn't in the kitchen anymore. He didn't exist anywhere but attached to Cas Novak's lips and his body, thrumming sweetly against him.

Despite it all, Cas's lips felt soft, rose-petal smooth and he opened them quickly, melting against Dean.

The quick snake of Cas's tongue against his lips made Dean start and suck in a breath. He couldn't go far though, just back enough that their lips didn't touch, that he could breathe in the humid kitchen air. His heart pounded right out of his shirt and threatened to take the whole house with it.

Cas's hand still rested on his face, his thumb ghosting over his cheek. “Y'know what they say about freckles?”

Dean heaved out a breath through his nose and shook his head. He tipped his face into Cas's head and he wanted more, but he didn't know how to ask.

“Say freckles are kisses from angels,” Cas explained. Dean heard that one before but he didn't care; it sounded unreasonably sweet coming from that low, rough voice, crazy and beautiful and maybe even real. “Say someone's got freckles, means they're well and truly blessed.”

Dean didn't feel blessed; he felt like he was bursting apart at the seams but Cas didn't seem to care or notice.

“C'mon. Let's try that bed.”

* * *

 

Oh, this was wrong. Cas Novak knew it and still he carried on, pulling the sheriff along by the hand. They'd kissed and now Cas couldn't leave. He couldn't trick him and escape, like he'd been fixing to.

He couldn't do any of that.

He couldn't do a thing with Dean either, not really. Even this seemed too much.

The hallway off the stairs led to two rooms; Dean pointed the right one out, at the front of the house so Cas imagined it caught all the light in the mornings. He swallowed before he opened the door onto this sacred space, this room of Dean's dreams, a charmingly naive tribute to a now-dead wife.

The room was simple with one bright window, a wardrobe, dressing table, and that bed, all covered in a thin coating of dust. The _bed_ though; the bed stood proud against up against the wall, so the bright morning sun would shine on it. Turned walnut, four posts, with a pink _chinois_ coverlet spread out on it, immaculately made.

Cas felt like an intruder, just seeing all of this.

“This is beautiful,” he sighed, turning back to Dean and smiling. He squeezed his hand again, tugging to bring him in all the way. “Come on, show me around.”

“Not much to show,” Dean sagged against Cas but Cas held the solid weight up like he'd done with more than a few men. “Dressing table,” Dean pointed with a loose arm. “Wardrobe and then the bed. Never showed anyone else.”

“Well, I'm pleased to have seen it,” Cas smiled at him, attempting to be delicate for once in his life. “Even more pleased to get to lay on an _actual_ goddamned bed for once.”

Cas started stripping immediately. Boots first, hitting the floor with little billows of dust. He snapped his suspenders down, tore at his shirt and pulled down the top half of his undergarment, glad to be taking it all off. More often than not, he ended the days reeking but with no recourse; at least he'd had a change to wash himself today, if not his garments.

Dean edged into the room, dainty around the door frame, holding onto it for support. All too easy to forget that the sheriff did not drink, a rarity out here ad even more so in Cas's life. The people he tended to keep with didn't show much chastity of any sort, drinking included.

Maybe the change would do him good.

Shirtless, Cas plodded over to Dean and grabbed the front of his shirt for his attention. Those grass-green eyes took a minute to focus on him, blinking long and slow. His lashes were longer than any Cas had ever seen, and he once saw a pretty boy in Omaha City with mink fur attached on. Somehow, Dean looked better than all of that.

“Hey, Winchester.”

“Novak.”

“C'mon, let's get comfortable,” Cas said, his fingers already working the pearly little buttons on Dean's shirt.

“Oh, no, no, I can't,” Dean grumbled but his arms lacked by his side, his eyes veering past Cas to the bed.

“Just comfortable, I said. We're not gonna do anything,” Cas assured him, and he meant it too.

Dean looked back at him and nodded once, tugging at his collar, trying to help as best he could but the whiskey clearly had an effect.

“You meant it when you said you didn't drink, huh? Lookit you. Adorable,” Cas chuckled, pulling Dean's shirt from his pants.

Dean stepped out of them unsteadily, his hands attaching to Cas's shoulders to steady himself. “That bad, huh?”

“Nah, it's not bad.”

In a few fumbling, giggling minutes more, they were both of them undressed, standing in front of the bed. Cas pulled back the pink and white cover and slid in first, moaning aloud at how comfortable the thing was. Soft but a little firm and he'd never been in a bed so wonderful, not in any of the parts of his life he remembered, at least.

“Lord, Dean, this is heaven,” he sighed, stretching his arms out of the sheriff. “C'mon.”

“I'm not gonna - “

“You can just lay down with me. Here. That's all I'm asking.”

Dean bit his lip, his face creasing indecisively. He looked back out the doorway, probably thinking about the chesterfield downstairs that had borne his weight for so many nights but no.

No more.

Dean slid in beside Cas in one motion, turning flat on his back and staring up at the ceiling.

Cas smiled like he'd already won. He turned, flung an arm over Dean's chest and even in the dim light, he marked the freckles there, too. He wondered if he had them everywhere, if he'd be able to spot them on his thighs, on his backside. Had the angels kissed him everywhere?

Dean went stiff as a broad for a moment until the drunken looseness hit; his bones sagged into the mattress and he puffed out a breath, relaxing as much as he was likely to.

“Hey. Hey, this is nice,” Cas said, sighing it out and meaning it.

“Don't...don't try nothing.”

“I'm not gonna.” But Cas moved closer, resting his head on Dean's chest, hearing his heart thumping against his ear, pounding hard and harder and then slower.

“Y'promise.”

“Promise.”

“I mean, you could,” Dean said, seconds later, his voice high, maybe a little frightened.

Boy, Cas had been there before, more than once. New bed, strange place, heart pounding like a rabbit's. Sacred and trapped and he didn't want Dean to feel that, he realized. Not now, not ever.

“Wouldn't be right, Dean.”

“I liked the kiss. More than I oughta.”

“Don't let anyone tell you how much you're supposed to enjoy things. Either you liked it or you didn't.”

“I liked it.”

“Well, alright then. That's good information to use, come tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Dean muttered, nearly asleep from his breath, deep and even. But his arm moved, ducking under Cas, rustling down his back and resting at the top of his ass. “Thought you were so gorgeous, first time I saw you. Dirty though you were.”

Cas didn't say a thing, just smiled against Dean's skin and listened to his heart slow, to his breathing as it deepened like a lullaby, putting him to sleep as well.

Tomorrow.

* * *

 

The town died promptly at sundown. Jo noticed her first night in Alderson, sitting at her front window and watching lights go out. Even the saloon shuttered it's doors. Only the new hotel remained open and even then, she felt sure it wasn't truly open to strangers.

Easy enough, then, to creep along the back streets back to the sheriff's office. The night felt cool, nice for spying and given that no one walked the streets, Jo didn't need to put on airs. Or wear the cumbersome mourning dress she was beginning to loathe. Instead, she had on a plain shirt and soft doeskin pants, her well-worn boots and a hat to pull down. Anyone catching her silhouette might take her for a boy and leave her be.

And if anyone else deigned to bother her, she had a gun on her waist and knives just about everywhere. Failing that, she felt confident in besting most men in hand to hand combat, if it came to that. It rarely did.

She crept up to the sheriff's office and peered in the window. That place went dark, too. If you lived here, you knew where the sheriff lived anyway, and failing that, you knew the deputy's address as well.

Strangely, the cells were both empty, when there should have been at least one man sleeping it off, in there. Overnight was standard practice for drunks and from all accounts, this man had been particularly intoxicated.

It meshed perfectly with what she knew about Cas Novak; a gambler and drunk of no renown, an all-round degenerate drifting his way through life. Not particularly dangerous, but neither to be trusted entirely. Especially given the body left in his wake.

Jo frowned at the dark window, scowling at her own reflection. Footprints shuffled around in the dirt around the back door, but she knew the sheriff took that way home, rather than walk the main streets most nights. She didn't blame him for that.

At the back door, Jo tried the knob. Locked. She reached into her belt for her picks and just then, the hair on the back of her neck prickled and she turned slow to find her instincts true. For a second, her head spun with adrenaline and a thousand different courses of action but once she relaxed into the situation, everything came easier

Even in the dark, she recognized Deputy Fitzgerald, and raised her hands placidly.

“Deputy. I can explain.”

He gaped and then took his hat off, his gun nothing more than an afterthought. “Mrs. Connolly? I took you for some...no good kid.”

“I'm sure you did,” she smiled evenly at him, letting her hands relax back down to her sides. “I was just after a glimpse of this man you locked up, this afternoon. Do you know where I might find him?”

Deputy Fitzgerald narrowed his eyes and moved to the window himself, peering in and making an interested noise. “Must be the sheriff let him go,” he reasoned, turning around to face her again. “Didn't think he'd come to that fast, but some men weather the drink better than others.”

Jo smiled still and nodded. She felt his eyes on her, brimming with questions his manners wouldn't let him ask. Finally, sick of his staring, she hooked an arm through his and started back towards her rented house, knowing those same manners wouldn't permit him to decline.

“Come on, I'll make you some tea and I've got some cake leftover. I have a few questions I'd like to ask, if you don't mind indulging a silly woman?”

Awestruck but polite as ever, he followed her home.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Dean Winchester had never felt quite so bad.

He woke up slow and moaning. His head pounded daggers and the little bit of light creeping around the curtains proved too much. He shut his eyes gain, flung his arm over his head and moaned anew. Which didn't help. Maybe nothing would.

Stretching made his head feel worse. The soft sensation of the bed underneath his achy limbs felt strange and wonderful all at once for a few seconds until – oh. How had he ended up here?

Dean sat up fast and winced, backing against the headboard. The room, the fabled room he never slept a night in until now, apparently. The bed beside him looked mussed up, sleep-worn. And he didn't have a stitch of clothing on.

Half of it tumbled back in a hazy amber rush, the night spent drinking, the delinquent with the startling eyes and the staggering charm. Dean couldn't quite remember anything past kissing him. But that came through with crystal clarity; he had kissed Cas Novak, not twelve hours after arresting him.

That had to be some kind of record, or else some kind of misdemeanor.

Dean took a few steps to steady himself as best he could but the uprightness got to his stomach, twisting it up in wormy knots. Undaunted, Dean slung his legs off the bed, sparing a second to rake through his mussed hair before he pushed up to his feet.

It pounded his head fierce but goddammit, he had to see it through.

His clothes rested in a heap by the door. He looked for his pocket-watch first, squinting to catch the hour and swearing under his breath. After nine. He hadn't slept so long in years. He hadn't shirked his duties the entire time he'd been sheriff. This was a total lapse in morality from every standpoint.

The nausea faded into something more like personal recrimination as he tugged on his clothes halfway, managing his underthings, pants and his unbuttoned shirt, his suspenders hanging low on his hips.

The second his feet hit the stairs, he smelled something wonderful. Coffee, strong and hot with just the right bitter edge. And bacon. A few stairs down, he heard it sizzling. He waited for his stomach to turn but it didn't; instead, it grumbled with hunger and he patted it, pursing his lips curiously.

Whatever had or hadn't happened last night, the breakfast considerably softened the blow. Past the kitchen doorway, there stood Cas Novak, possibly a murderer, certainly a suspect in more than one regard, but all of that fell away.

He looked stunning from behind. His grimy white union suit filled out in all the right places. His back stretched the cotton wide and Dean's eyes roamed lower, to the thickness about his waist and his backside, and his marvelous thighs.

Just how long Dean spent staring, he couldn't say but something seemed so right about it, about Novak swanning around barely dressed in his kitchen.

Dean finally cleared his throat, dropping his boots and dragging his ass in. He winced and pulled out a chair, the scraping setting off red sparks in his head but he felt much better for sitting down again.

“I wasn't sure I should wake you,” Cas said, lingering over the stove with a wooden spoon. He half-turned and put a cup of steaming coffee on the table. Dean saw the suit was as undone as it could get, all the way down the tanned expanse of Cas's front, also surprisingly muscled. The light dusting of hair gave way to more lower down and Dean tore his eyes away before he embarrassed himself.

Or maybe it was too late for that, already.

Cas chuckled at him and set back about the stove. “I know you've got a deputy that can take care of most things, so I sent word with the boy across the way that you'd be taking a day off. Thought it fine, considering how sleepy this place is. And you aren't quite accustomed to what we did last night.

Dean stared at the steam swirling on the surface of the coffee and tried to make his sluggish brain catch fire. It refused. “What we did last night,” he repeated dryly, licking at his sandpaper lips.

“The drinking's all I mean,” Cas supplied quickly, maybe too quickly. “Neither of us were in shape for much else.”

“I see,” Dean said, still eyeing Cas cautiously. Strangely, he trusted the man and if that came to a fault, then so be it; Cas hadn't disappointed him yet. Dean sipped at the scorching coffee and settled back into his chair. “I do remember some things.”

“That right?” Cas cast his head over his shoulder, a smile in his blue eyes. “How'd you feel about it, in the light of day?”

Dean poked his tongue around his mouth and tried to remember what exactly it felt like. Soft, wasn't it? Soft and more gentle than he figured. Tender, too. A blush crept pink on his face and he brought the cup to his mouth, hiding it as best he could.

“That bad?” Cas teased. He closed up the stove and set a plate in front of Dean, thick slabs of bacon and sunny yellow eggs with some brown toast. He had a smaller plate for himself and ate standing up, leaning against the wall, despite the numerous chairs.

“Weren't bad,” Dean grumbled, picking up a forkful of eggs. “I dunno what I feel about it. “

He wanted to do it again; he knew that now, looking at this stranger even out of the corner of his eyes. The easy pose he took was singularly arousing. And the light in his eyes, even after so much drinking, held promise too.

“So...you'd be amenable to continuing?”

Dean suppressed a smile around his fork. “Maybe without the whiskey. Or least without so much of it.”

“Yeah?” Cas asked, eyebrows shooting up.

“Maybe. Will you sit your ass down, first?” Dean nodded to an empty chair, “I know you're probably used to eating in the dirt or up in a tree or what have you but just, c'mon. You slaved over that hot stove and all that. Take a break.”

Cas eyed the chair with something like indecision but after a shrug, he sat. He kept his plate held up though, like he was scared someone might swipe it. “Alright, I'm sitting.”

“Good.”

“So, you wanna kiss me again?”

“Oh my Lord, did I not already answer that?” Dean grumbled but he smiled a little, at the corners of his mouth, finding he couldn't help it.

“You did, in a manner of speaking. You know,” Cas started thoughtfully, chewing at some toast, “You did say you didn't mind if I did more. While we were in bed.”

Dean's breath hitched and he focused on the coffee again, practically pouring it down his throat. He didn't remember. And anyway, he'd been drunk. Didn't count, he was sure it didn't. “And did we?”

“No, sir. I refused, see. Since I'm nice like that.”

Dean huffed. He felt grateful though; where other men may have taken advantage, Cas Novak did not. How could he be so good and still so much maligned?

“Thanks.”

“Mhmm. My pleasure. Or displeasure, I suppose, since you did look a treat with all your clothes off.”

Dean flushed pinker, felt it dot up his chest and his ears too, until he nearly sweated under Cas's gaze. Two could play at that. “I spent a while staring at you too, y'know. From the doorway here. Just now.”

“I know,” Cas answered, a sage smile on his beautiful wide lips. Dean wanted to kiss him across the table, against the wall, wanted to refresh his memory as to how it felt so he'd have a sober view of things. Maybe it wouldn't be so good.

He doubted that very much.

“You knew?”

“Course I did. You thumped down the stairs like a herd of cattle, Winchester. Figured you were enjoying the view some.”

“You're a - “

“A what?”

 _A godsend_ , Dean thought, just looking at him. He was distracting and all manner of attractive and strangely, exactly what Dean needed, right now. Life was strange, sometimes. Every time.

“You know what you are,” Dean answered with a wry twist to his lips. Plate cleared, he pushed up from the table and worked at his shirt buttons, then thought the better of it. He didn't need to dress, today. He had nowhere to be for once. He left his shirt open, his suspenders down. “I don't quite relish taking a day to myself but...”

“But you need it. Trust me.”

 _Trust him_. Dean Winchester was beginning to.

* * *

 

An hour later, they were sitting in the parlor, still half-dressed. Dean kept checking out the window, furtive and quick, expecting some calamity or other to end up on his doorstep.

“You don't take much time for yourself, do you?” Cas asked, shutting the dusty book he'd been playing at reading.

Dean looked over from the chair by the window, raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “Can't remember the last time. Might've been when I was building the house. Even then, folks just came around with complaints and such, if they had any.”

“That is entirely too long. You need to relax.”

“Relax,” Dean grumbled, rolling his eyes. “I don't have time for luxuries like relaxation.”

“Today you do. Right now, you do,” Cas said, getting up from the couch – the chesterfield, as he thought of it now – where Dean slept until last night. He stretched his arms over his head, popped his neck and looked back to the sheriff. “What would you like to do, if you could do anything right now?”

“Anything?”

“Absolutely anything,” Cas said quietly, knowing just how to load the question up. He wasn't expecting anything salacious, not right away, but he didn't mind getting Dean thinking it, at least. All they'd done was kiss and he wanted more. He wanted Dean Winchester to want more. A lot more.

Dean looked up at him, passing his tongue over his pink lips, huffing out a little sigh. “Y'know, I think I'd like a bath.”

Cas's mouth curved into a slow grin, his hands falling onto his hips. “A bath? You got a tub, right?”

“Mhm. That back room, by the kitchen.”

“Big?”

“Huge. Made sure I'd fit in it.”

Cas hummed in thought, his eyes trailing over Dean's thick body, remembering just what he'd looked like the night before and knowing he needed to see more, especially in the daylight and scrubbed pink and clean. “You ever had someone else scrub you up?”

“Course not,” Dean grimaced, glancing out the window again, squirming where he sat. “That kinda thing's a little unseemly. Paying a girl for something I can do myself.”

“You won't be paying a girl,” Cas grinned wide, snapping the curtains shut. “Won't be paying me at all. I'm offering.”

“No - “

“No funny business, I got it,” Cas said, rolling his eyes but leaning over Dean, planting a gentle kiss on the side of his head. “I'll get the water going.

* * *

 

Dean couldn't help his skepticism. Some things were intimate, for quiet contemplation and he'd always held that bathing was one of those things.

But here he was in the back room he'd built around the tub, soaked up to his neck, with Cas Novak perched on the stool beside him. He'd changed into a pair of Dean's drawers and folded them over at the waist so they hung indecently low, but much more suited to the steamy temperature in the room.

The water was clear and warm, nothing murky to obscure the view which, he noticed, Cas enjoyed quite a bit.

“It's warm enough? Cause I put another pot of water on the stove, I can grab it if - “

“It's plenty warm,” Dean muttered, trying to sink even lower in the tub but there was nowhere to go. His legs nearly stuck out as it was and the tub squeezed just a little too slender for his arms, so they rested on the porcelain sides. He'd fit fine before he got really building the house and now, he tested the tub's worth. “It's fine, you can go if you like.”

“Nah. I like the company. Might get in there after you. Wonder if we can both fit.” Cas winked and Dean wanted to dunk his head fully under the water, wanted to hold his breath until he disappeared just so the blush would abate.

Even through the warmth of the water, he felt his cheeks glowing and he knew Cas saw, because he chuckled again.

“Y'know I can't really see anything,” Cas assured him, heaving up off the stool and kneeling behind him.

Dean felt his warm breath against his neck, felt the first soft tickles of the wet flannel dragging past his shoulders and alright, it was nice enough. Still, he squirmed. He water sloshed around gently with the motion.

“Someone ought to do this to you every night, y'know. Working so hard as you do. You deserve it.”

Dean grunted nothing, either yes nor no. He wasn't sure he deserved much of anything, but this wasn't terrible, at least.

“This's a good start, though,” Cas mumbled in that low, sweet voice he had, the one that kept raising goosebumps onto Dean's skin, even under the water. “Am I earning my keep, d'you think?”

Dean took a deep breath in through his nose and shut his eyes, trying to relax. It wasn't difficult, he found, under Cas's hands, under the soft cloth. He massaged harder at Dean's shoulders and Dean let out a soft whine, sighing through his nose.

“You don't have to earn your keep,” Dean tipped his head back, melting into the water, against Cas's strong hands. “You were threatened and I'm making sure those threats do not come to fruition.”

“Still,” Cas hummed behind him and Dean swore he felt it, somehow, through his fingertips as he worked lower on his back and the up to his neck again, the piece of washing flannel gone. “I have had more than a few run-ins with the law and no one's treated me quite so kindly.”

“I feel compelled to apologize.”

“Don't. Do not. You can't speak for them all. You can speak for yourself and that's good enough.”

Quiet for a while, and Dean nearly fell asleep. The relaxation somewhat lessened the thumping in his head, as did Cas's strong hands on his neck and the back of his head.

“You've done this before,” Dean mumbled, didn't ask, just considered it out loud, tipped off by the well-practiced maneuvering of his fingers.

Cas hummed a non-answer and draped himself around the back of Dean, working at his chest muscles in a far too arousing fashion.

“Have you? Am I stiffing you outta a payday here?”

“Times get tough,” Cas said, breathing against his ear and he might as well have kissed Dean again, from the way that felt. “Man's gotta do something when the well runs dry.”

It was answer enough and if Dean spared judgment on the girls that worked upstairs at saloons, he wasn't going to waste his time passing any on Cas Novak either. Seemed the world did enough of that on its own.

“Well, you're good,” Dean muttered.

Cas laughed against his ear and Dean felt it, felt it make him giddy in the strangest way. He liked hearing it, and he liked making it happen.

“Hey, that whiskey's probably run by by now, ain't it?” Dean turned his head slightly and those eyes met his, that dark bearded face. Cas could probably feel his heart pounding extra fast under his hands by now.

“Got some left. Been rationing,” Cas answered, clipped, blinking and ducking his head out of the way by nuzzling along Dean's neck.

“I'll visit Ol' Dave this afternoon. Get you some.”

“Sheriff Winchester,” Cas laughed against him, his fingers delving deeper and brushing against Dean's stomach, his hips. “You are making me into some kinda kept man here, seeing to my comfort as you are.”

Dean sighed out, his body arching against Cas's hands, his head falling back on to Cas's broad shoulder. “Just doing what's right. Just - “

“Y'like me?”

He did. He liked Cas Novak from the first second he saw him and every passing minute just made it worse and worse. His head hadn't been screwed on correctly since that afternoon in the saloon and certainly not sine last night. He could only blame so much on the whiskey. The rest boiled down to loneliness, to Cas's charms. He figured, if he were being used, Novak would've moved on already. He would've clocked Dean over the head and taken his leave. Plenty of chances for that.

He hadn't. He was still here, _right here_ , warm and solid against Dean's back, his long, tanned arms reaching under the water to touch all of him, where he could.

“I think that's obvious,” Dean finally huffed out, swallowing hard against the admission.

“I like you too,” Cas said, low and sweet, and different kind of music than Dean had ever heard before. “Hey, move up a bit.”

“Hmm? How - “ Dean didn't want to move ever again but Cas pushed at his shoulders, stood himself and stripped and Dean got that message pretty easy, leaning forward in the tub.

Couldn't be room for two of them in there but somehow, Cas slotted up behind him, easily flexibly, wholly solid, almost as warm as the water.

“Tight fit,” Cas laughed against him, winding his arms around Dean's middle, squirming heedless of the water sloshing over the sides. “Don't mind a tight fit, now and then.”

Dean couldn't manage enough air, suddenly. Cas felt so good against the back of him. They melted together to nice, legs framing each other's. Dean hesitated to relax back but there was nothing else for it. He leaned back slow and felt the vaguely hard press that had to be Cas's cock against him and his own gave an sympathetic twitch.

This had to be too far. This was very far and fast and Dean couldn't gather any strength to stop it.

He didn't much want to, either.

“So,” Cas settled back, resting his chin on Dean's shoulder, his voice lapping deep at his ear. “When was the last time anyone touched you, Winchester?”

“Too long,” Dean answered vaguely, hoping and praying he wouldn't have to follow up on it.

“Years?” Cas asked, his voice light with curiosity, not a hint of malice in the question. “I'd say months but you seem like the faithful type.”

Dean nodded, swallowing around the hard, nervous knot in his throat. Truthfully, he could not recall the last time he'd been with his late wife. Not the night before he left, he knew that. There'd been too much emotion, then, for anything to happen. And the whole time he'd been out here, out in the west, he'd been chaste as a nun.

It seemed silly, now.

“Too long, I said.”

Cas chuckled against his ear and kissed soft at his neck and Dean might well have dissolved from that alone. But his hands joined the conquest, dipping down against his hipbones and his inguinals, a slow journey that Dean watched out of half-closed eyes. He was all too aware of the vague shadow of his dick under the water, getting harder by the second.

“That is such a shame, Dean,” Cas purred against him, “Such a goddamned shame. You're beautiful.”

Dean's breath hitched, picked up quick at that and he watched Cas's hand snake down further, running flat over his stomach until it bumped at his dick. Cas gave a satisfied moan, his fingers trailing and wrapping slow.

Dean's body went something like haywire at the touch; his hips jerked up so fast the water sloshed over the sides again, dripping onto the floor. The sound went unnoticed; the only all Dean heard was the blood in his ears, the rush of it leaving and pooling around his middle.

“Oh, you're eager for it,” Cas's tone teased him but sweetly, so sweetly coupled with the kisses against his neck.

Dean didn't know where to turn, what to do, what he wanted. It happened so fast, again, fast and slow at the same time, how everything seemed to with Cas.

Cas started stroking him in long smooth pulls, all the way down and all the way up, so easy under the water like that. The image of it floated strange under the surface but Dean couldn't look away; red and pink and Cas's nut-brown hand, the slow drag of his fist. He shuddered and stopped looking, closing his eyes and letting it happen, letting himself feel it.

Behind him, Cas jammed unmistakably hard against his lower back. Dean shifted restlessly, trying to get a feel of it but it didn't work like that. Seemed big enough, maybe even too big, thick and hard and getting harder and Dean groaned again. His hips rocked up into Cas's grip, faster than his hand.

“Hey, easy,” Cas crooned against his skin, sucking kisses at his shoulder, his back, until it blossomed in pain and pleasure. No one had done that before, for certain, and Dean found himself loving it, groaning loud.

“H-how? I can't. Lord, Cas, I can't,” Dean stammered, his hands gripping hard at the side of the tub.

“You're so sweet, Dean. Big excited puppy,” Cas laughed but he didn't stop; if anything, his hand picked up speed. “You touch yourself, don't you? When's the last time?”

Dean couldn't think; he didn't keep track of it anyway. It happened when it needed to, either furtive in the morning or long and luxurious before bed, sometimes. But not as often, not as much as he could recall. Maybe... “Last week,” he answered with his teeth gritted, “I think.”

“A whole week passed since you came? I gotta fix that. I gotta fix it right now.”

Dean had no time to ruminate on it.

Cas squeezed his cock hard, perfectly firm. Under the slickness of the water, he sped up and up, faster and faster until Dean swore he'd shoot through the roof. His whole body tensed up, his legs twitching madly, his breath deserting him until he finally came.

He shouted, he was sure of that, shouted while Cas groaned happily and his sudden release made him see stars under his eyelids, bright swirling galaxies that he loved with a sudden ferocity for their newness, for never feeling quite like this before.

“Oh, there you do,” Cas sang, “So good, ain't it? Don't that feel better'n anything?” He went slower, at least, his grip looser and his body warm as Dean sagged back against it.

Dean grunted something like an answer, the best he could manage while his head floated away and his body came down. He felt like he'd just run a dozen miles too fast, like he'd raced someone'd much more capable horse, like..like he hadn't ever felt before. Not ever.

Breath eventually regained, he heaved out a sigh that shook his whole body. “Goddamn,” he breathed out, “I mean it.”

Cas laughed, sweet and clear and wound his arms back around Dean's middle, kissing gently at his neck again. “You are most welcome, Dean. C'mon, water's getting cold. And, y'know, messy.”

“I dunno if I can move.”

“Stop,” Cas sorted, “Just c'mon.” He shoved gently at Dean, at his back, and Dean tipped forward to let Cas get out first.

The tub seemed mournfully empty with just his body in there, all of a sudden.

* * *

 

The air hit Cas cold, dick-first. He could've easily pulled off behind Dean in two seconds flat but he didn't. He waited. He didn't know what for, but as soon as he saw Dean's eyes fall on his hard dick, he knew why.

Dean licked his goddamned lips, staring and stepping out of the tub and Cas knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what he wanted to do.

Cas handed Dean the towel, the only one they'd brought to the small room and leaned back against the wall, watching him dry off quick. His blondish hair stuck up at odd angles and his freckles shone out even more for having been scrubbed clean.

He made to hand back the towel and his eyes roamed again to Cas's dick.

So, Cas grabbed it up in his hand and raised his eyebrows in something like a challenge. “Like what you see, huh?”

Dean went pink again,all over, a delicate beautiful shade like a rose. He didn't say anything.

He didn't really have to.

“Have you ever...y'know,” Cas started, then laughed at himself being such a prude. “Lord. Even seeing you like this makes me feel like some kinda virgin. C'mere. Come over here.”

Dean walked over slow until they stood face to face. Cas slipped his fingers over that sweet face, tilting his head to kiss him again.

“More than anything, I would love to see you on your knees for me.”

Dean blinked, his mouth opening just a little, just enough that Cas felt the hot steam of his breath from the closeness, practically tasting it.

“Have you done that before?” Cas asked, though he figured the answer out from the distracted look in Dean's eyes, the crease in his brow. “It's alright, if you haven't,” Cas smiled, slipping his hand down between them for Dean's.

The sheriff's hands were rough; both of theirs were but it was nice feeling a man's hand like that. The places Cas frequented, where he had to pay, wasn't quite the same. Sometimes he just wanted the hard-scrabble roughness he found with Dean.

Cas slipped his fingers around Dean's and twined them together, pulling his hand towards his hard dick, letting him curl his fingers around it on his own. Dean did it with a quiet gasp and a curious wriggling of his digits, but eased into it quickly.

“Just like touchin' yourself,” Cas assured him, his hands molding around Dean's neck to pull him in for another kiss and his waist, just to bring him as close as they could be.

“How...how d'you want me to do this?” Dean asked, his eyes flashing dark and his breath a nervous puff that Cas swallowed, being so close.

“I'd be fine with just this, honest,” Cas shut his eyes for a moment, reveling in the feeling of Dean's warm, rough hand on his cock, stroking him slow. Maybe that's how he did himself, all alone. Oh, he'd pay to see that, even if he could get it for free.

“No, no, I wanna...wanna do that thing you want.”

“You want to suck my dick.”

“Yeah,” Dean sighed out, one corner of his mouth curling into a little smirk. “I've thought about it, sometimes. Wondered what it was like.” Dean looked down between them and Cas watched him staring, watched his pretty pink tongue dart out to wet his lips.

“Thought about it, hmm?” Cas teased, giving him a gentle push down

Dean sank easily and Cas nearly groaned at the mere sight. Hot breath melted over his dick and Dean huffed, “Yeah,” gazing straight at Cas's cock, then fluttering his eyes upwards.

Cas dreamed about that look, somehow. Green-green eyes and long lashes, sun-reddened cheeks with freckles all around. His cock pulsed just looking an he knew he'd never last, not as long as he ought to, as long as he looked down at such a sight as Dean Winchester on his knees.

“Well, here's your chance.” Cas kept a hand on his face, his thumb stroking over Dean's plump bottom lip. “Show me what you been thinking so hard about all this time, Dean. I bet you're gonna be real good at it. Got the sweetest mouth.” From the confused look, Cas felt sure no one told Dean that bit of truth before. “Here, you can use your tongue first,” Cas told him, but God, he wanted to sink all the way into Dean's plush mouth already.

Dean nodded, his tongue poking out again. He angled Cas's dick just right to lap at the tip and went so slow, so kitten-sweet.

Cas felt it through his whole body, the sweetest tremor of lust and want and he hadn't felt such a need to be gentle before, hadn't ever wanted to. “You got it, Dean.”

Dean did; Dean did good just licking, his pink tongue sliding everywhere, tracing veins and the thick underside, twirling all down to the root of his dick too, until Cas couldn't get enough air in his lungs. “Now I...I can use my whole mouth, can't I?”

Cas nearly laughed but he didn't have the oxygen; he nodded fast, tightening his fist in Dean's dark blond hair.

“Good. Cause I wanna. It's big though.” Dean's face wrinkled in concentration but he pushed against Cas's dick with his lips, parting them slow around his head.

“Oh, Lord,” Cas swore, fighting for breath, for control. “That is just perfect, Dean.”

Dean hummed against him and it felt like angels singing, thrumming hard through him. He tried more and Cas's legs went to jelly. Dean couldn't get him more than halfway but it was enough,more than enough and better than anyone's first try, Cas felt confident in that.

More than anything, it was goddamned beautiful, a shame he hadn't done it before but less of one, because this got to be his first time, because Cas got to see it, all of it; the dark curiosity in his eyes, the moment he relaxed against it. One of Dean's hands curled around Cas's thigh for balance but the other had him at the root of his cock, stroking what he couldn't take in. Maybe some girl had done him like that sometime or maybe it was just second nature; didn't matter, Dean was perfection.

The dark room dripped with humidity and everything felt sloppy, dirty, filthier for it. They'd both need another wash after the pouring sweat but Cas liked it like this, and it seemed like Dean did too.

“Think you were made for this,” Cas rasped out, nearing the end faster for all the staring at Dean, but he couldn't bring himself to stop. “Like someone carved your face outta marble and put you here just to suck on my cock.”

He didn't expect Dean to enjoy his trashy dirty talk so much but he moaned around Cas's dick and tried to sink further, coming up coughing with a torrent of spit drooling down his mouth and even that looked fucking beautiful, a goddamned sight to behold.

Cas didn't usually get so quiet, near the end, but he'd run out of things to say. All he wanted to do was look, to memorize every sweet second of the way Dean's lips stretched around him, the glorious tightness of his mouth. Cas panted, ran his fingers over Dean's face, over his mouth, gripping at his hair to hold him still.

“Gonna blow, Dean,” he warned, biting his bottom lip so hard, it hurt. “Where d'you want it? Huh? You wanna swallow or you wanna - “

Dean moaned and rocked back on his heels and Cas noticed for the first time that he'd been stroking off too. Dean came, just then, splattering the floor and Cas's calf and Cas lost it too.

His body arched hard and Dean choked, just a little, pulling off so Cas came all over his face. Dean held still, mouth open, tongue out for Cas to paint up. He did. His breath hitched hard, nearly choking too as he watched his come stripe up Dean's pretty face. Dean's eyes glued shut until he blinked, and once he was sure Cas was done, he grinned up at him and wiped at his face with one hand.

“Lord almighty, Novak. That was a load.”

Cas sighed happily, deflated down onto his knees in front of Dean and moved in fast, kissing him through the mess and licking up what remained while Dean gasped surprised.

Utterly out of words, Cas's heart thudded hard in his chest and he scrambled to get Dean closer, until they tumbled onto the soggy floor in a hot sticky mess.

* * *

 

Something like half an hour later, they'd taken another quick bath each, separate or they'd never get clean. Although, Dean longed to feel Cas crammed up behind him again. Maybe they'd sleep like that tonight, since he'd make Cas stay again. For safety, first and foremost but then, Dean relished his company, now more than ever. It'd been too long since he'd had any.

“Well, that was one way to kill out a morning, huh?” Dean joked, finally fully dressed but without his jacket and gun belt, those left slung over a kitchen chair.

“If you're looking to kill the afternoon off, I have some suggestions,” Cas answered, still half-dressed, his clean bare feet propped up on a chair, a mug of coffee with a generous splash of whiskey cradled in his hands.

“Gonna go into town and see to some things,” Dean explained, looking at his gun belt. He should. He should put it on and waltz into town and act the sheriff. Just to check, to make sure everything was fine as it should be. “And I promise I'll get you some whiskey. And I'll get us something for dinner. Anything else you need?”

Cas scratched thoughtfully at his scruffy cheek, his beard shot through with a few grays Dean hadn't noticed before, but in the afternoon light, he looked different, tanned and tame and lovely. “Could use some new clothes, but I don't want to put you out, as far as money goes.”

“Please,” Dean waved his hand, “I've got more than enough to get you a shirt and some trousers that don't have holes in 'em everywhere. How about your boots?”

“Boots are fine. Maybe a new hat, unless you grab mine from the jail. And maybe something to beat a fellow with, if it comes to that.”

Dean snorted a laugh, fastening his guns around his waist, folding his jacket over his arm. “Yeah, you're still technically in jail, so we can't go too far.”

“Kinda already did.”

“Stop.”

“Some jail you run there, Sheriff Winchester. I tell you, I could get used to that,” Cas grinned at him, his eyes brightest blue for all the afternoon sun. The minute before Dean left, he swooped in and kissed him soft, left them both wanting more as he strode out the door.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Even for the afternoon, the day felt warm. Dean Winchester pulled his hat off just before Alderson's main street came into view, mopping at his sweaty forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. With his jacket on, it would've been unbearable but for now, the weather was tolerable. Everything, actually, felt nice. Looked nice. Like the town had been blessed somehow, shining in the afternoon sun. The women shuffled on the meager boardwalk from the hotel cafe to another destination, clumped all together. Far enough away, thankfully, that they didn't notice Dean and were gone in a whoosh of spring colors soon enough.

He went on to the butcher's, set in a back alley. The pigs' noise and stench hit him before anything else. He parted the curtain at the door and ducked inside, taking his hat off again. The place looked dim and felt cool, at least, if not slightly gory for the decade of blood stains, of tripe and gristle and bones. It always reminded Dean of the basement of the precinct he'd worked in, where they kept the bodies; it always made him shiver a little.

A portly man with an even rounder face popped out of the back, wiping his hands on his pink-streaked apron and smiling wide. “Sheriff Winchester, nice to see you today. Business or pleasure?”

“Ah, the later,” Dean smiled back, feeling the usual easy kinship he had with Larry the butcher, both being from the east. “What's good?”

“What isn't?” the man laughed, folding his hands underneath his stomach, bending over the chipped ice drawers where he displayed the meat. “Cut up a nice sow this morning. Chops, maybe?”

Dean followed his gaze to the end of the display, where the contents of said sow were arranged. The chops were thick, boned, pink with enough fat on the edges that it'd keep him full for a while.

_Them_ , his brain corrected a moment later. Two of them now, staying indefinitely at his house. Just thinking on Cas in the kitchen made him smile.

“Chops look good.”

“I'm fixing one up for supper myself, come closing time,” Larry chatted idly while he wrapped the meat. “Got some asparagus growing by the homestead, too. Makes a nice supper, especially for us bachelors.”

“Oh, uh,” Dean swallowed, watching him tie up the meat in some paper, with strings, “Might as well make it two. Two chops.”

“Two,” Larry repeated, moving back to the iced table. “Got yourself company over? Maybe the widow Mrs. Connolly, is it? I know she's quite a nice conversationalist.”

“No, no,” Dean smiled amiably, wishing he hadn't said a thing. “Just uh, got a fellow staying over with me a few nights on his way through town. Charity case. He couldn't afford a room anywhere so...I took him on.” Dean felt his face flush with explanation, felt like the butcher had eyes on him extra hard, doubly scrutinous, but that couldn't be. Likely, he didn't care any.

“Ah, well, that is kind of you. A little of that eastern hospitality goes far out here, doesn't it?” He continued up the chatter, the usual sort of nonsense while he tended to the meat. “Get some potatoes, down at the general tore, to go with these. It'll be a nice meal for a traveling stranger.”

“Sure thing,” Dean smiled again. He passed money over the counter, waving off the favor the butcher wanted to give him. He didn't take favors that way. Wasn't right. “You have a good night, Larry.”

“And you too,” he called around the door.

By the time Dean got down the boardwalk to the general store, he noticed the newfound quietness. No one moved around the streets anymore, and he saw why once he passed by a few more buildings.

He stopped, heaving a sigh, mopping his brown again and starting forward.

“Gentleman,” he called out, to the crowd assembled in front of his office. Most of them worse black and had their horses tied up in front. He did a quick scan for immediate trouble, for bottles of liquor in hands, none, and for firearms, some, but holstered. “Is there something I can help you all with on this lovely afternoon?”

They jeered and parted and of course, there was Mr. Richard Mayweather, the richest rancher in the county and the sharpest thorn in Dean's side, currently. He tipped his had and walked the planks towards Dean in a slow, cocky amble.

“Now, I didn't intend to raise such a crowd but telling folks here and there about the man you've got tucked away in jail, the man as likely did the train job and even more likely has been rustling my cattle for the entire season here, well, that raised the ire of some of the locals. Rightfully so, I'd say.”

Dean swallowed, setting his shoulders square and his jaw tight. “Respectfully, I would say that is on me to handle.” He walked closer and saw the door to his office stood open and Deputy Fitzgerald sat at his desk.

“Oh, and that would be lovely but you are not handling it. With all due respect, of course. So I did take it upon myself to send a little note over to the marshal's office, in hopes that he might be more of a man of action.”

“Uh huh,” Dean drawled, sliding between the door and Mayweather. “I look forward to hearing from him as soon as he gets your missive. I'm sure he'll be - “

“See,” Mayweather grinned and even that looked greasy, “See, he sent us word right away. Got my fastest rider, one of my sons of course, to take word over and the marshal, he already replied back that he'd be here sooner rather than later to set things to rights. He's intent on calling on the governor too. Nice of him to take such a personal interest, isn't it? I'm sure you're thankful, considering.”

“Considering?” Dean asked, eyebrows shooting up. Behind him, he felt Fitzgerald move into place in a hasty cover position.

“Well, yes. Considering that man you're _supposed_ to have in jail there is the very bandit that murdered your family. Cold blooded. Along with a few other lives as well. I imagine you'd be bursting to get him properly taken care of.”

Dean clenched his jaw and smiled through it, polite as ever, conducting business as he always did. It only had the opposite effect on men like this.

“We know he ain't in here,” someone from the crowd, the mod, called. As far as the sheriff could tell, these weren't just townsfolk but company men, a mob raised more out of blind loyalty than want of justice. “So where is he?”

“None of your concern. He's taken care of, that's all you need to know about him.”

The crowd exploded into mutters and a few shouts. Mayweather raised a hand and quieted the rabble.

“Respectfully, when the marshal arrives, you will have to be a little more forthcoming in your answers.”

“Respectfully,” Dean repeated, tipping his hat, “I look forward to his arrival.” He turned on his heel, meeting the somewhat pallid face of his deputy. He pushed in, shutting the door behind him and throwing the bolt, heaving a breath as he leaned against it.

“Where _did_ you take that Novak fellow to?” Deputy Fitzgerald asked lightly, scratched at his head.

“Safety. I don't want to say more.”

“Oh, I wouldn't tell anyone.”

“I know. I trust you, believe me there. I just don't trust them not to be shoving their ears under the door, somehow. Listen, do me a favor?” Dean squinted folding out a few bills and handing them to Garth. “Get me two bottles of whiskey from Dave up the street? Leave 'em at the back door and be on your way home, now. I'll see to things from here on it.”

The deputy took the money and made for the door, pausing with his hand on the handle. “Mrs. Connolly's wanting to talk with you, Sheriff. It's about Novak and I can't say more, but you'd do well to stop over at her place soon.”

“Cryptic,” Dean mumbled, huffing a breath out of his nose. “She know him from somewhere?”

“Something like that,” Fitzgerald shrugged, fixing his hat on his head and opening up the back door, where the street was uncluttered. “I'll get your whiskey, sheriff.”

Dean turned as he left and watched out the window. The group milled around uselessly and then, something like half an hour later, finally dispersed, their heavy hoof beats thumping in the hard packed dirt. By then, Dean locked up, grabbed the whiskey and beat it home.

It'd only been an hour or so but he found himself missing Cas Novak. The man had a way of pushing everything else out of Dean's head.

* * *

 

“All this feeding me, keeping me in drink? Might never yet leave,” Cas Novak grinned, scraping back his chair in the kitchen and collecting up the plates. He felt heavy from the food, a definitely improvement on anything he'd managed to fire up along the trails. Actual well-butchered food, ably cooked by the surprisingly capable Sheriff Dean Winchester, who might well have himself a future career, if the law thing didn't pan out.

“Well, you might be stuck here a while longer,” Dean admitted. Cas felt his green eyes searching the back of him for a reaction but he didn't have much of one to give.

“That rancher trying to stir up trouble, still?”

“that he is,” Dean sighed. He sat back and undid cuffs and collar, and just a few buttons of his shirt. “He's called on the marshal and the governor. He had a mob come 'round the jail, looking for you. Things got a bit sour when you weren't there.”

“What'd you tell him?” Cas asked. He scrubbed at the plates in the little sink and left them soaking. A prickle of nerves stung through him. These men had no right to come after him but besides Dean Winchester, who could see to him? His alibis were shoddy at best. He looked the part, seemed a match or at the very least, a reliable scapegoat to pin any number of bad things on. That's what you get, being a stranger in town.

“That you were being kept safe and I did not elaborate.”

“Good,” Cas muttered. He got two clean glasses for them, for the bottle of whiskey he'd been eyeing ever since Dean got back. He waited for Dean to crack it open, watching his thick, rough fingers screw the top off, his big hand pour them a few fingers each. “Guess I really gotta thank you. You're kinda saving my life here.”

“Not yet, I'm not,” Dean grumbled. He sighed and Cas wished he could take all that away, wished he could make it all right somehow, for real. “Come tomorrow, there's a higher power to take on. Two of 'em, potentially. I'm hoping I can reason with them but...outside interests, as in the most moneyed ranch in the state, kinda stack the deck against me.”

“If worse comes to worse, I'll find a horse and light out,” Cas shrugged. But the thought left him sour. He drank his whiskey down in two mouthfuls, hoping to abate the squirming in his gut. He'd only been a day in this very lovely house and already, he'd privately dismissed life on the road. But he belonged on the road, not here, in a safe warm kitchen with a kind man doting on him.

“It won't come to that,” Dean said, with a promise in his voice that Cas wanted desperately to believe. He watched Dean close as the sheriff filled up Cas's glass, again. “Reason will prevail.”

“Does that often happen around here?” Cas asked. He couldn't hold in his laughter. “'Cause from what I've seen - “

“What've you seen?” Dean laughed back, eyebrows raising over his sweet green eyes, a challenge in his laugh. He drank a mouthful, then two.

Cas watched him with a foolhardiness that stunned him.

“Well, I was party to a sheriff, not unlike yourself although a touch more gruff, arresting some poor fellow right at the bar. Now, that man could barely keep himself upright, wasn't bothering the girls, nor the man tending bar. Near as I can tell, the sheriff just wanted a piece for himself. That sound reasonable to you?”

Dean laughed again, beautiful and infectious. “Seemed reasonable at the time. Seems a little far-fetched, the way you tell it.”

“Are you glad you did it?”

“I am.”

“Are you glad to have known me, Dean Winchester?”

“Don't talk like you're dying.”

“You don't know if I'm not. Could be the governor ties the noose himself.”

Dean rolled his eyes and finished his drink, so Cas poured him more. “I'd get you out of here before then. I promise.”

“Leave all this?” Cas asked, sweeping his eyes around the kitchen but meaning so much more.

“There's right and there's wrong. And if this place goes wrong, the town or the state, I mean, well, what else is there to do? One man can't turn the tide.”

Cas felt the strangest emotion bubbling up inside. No one did things like this. For him, for anyone, not in any kind of life he'd experienced. It made him more giddy than the liquor, thinking about him and Dean out where somewhere, on some road going who knows where. They could go anywhere, do anything. They could stay together as long as they wanted, that way, with no one interfering. They could let this thing run its course.

Whatever that was.

Cas got up quick, head spinning with thoughts, with drink, and he seated himself down smoothly on Dean's lap, legs astride him. His big thighs were more than comfortable; Cas could make himself a living there, he knew.

Especially when Dean looked up at him, thick fanned lashes and his whiskey-wet mouth opening. His hands curled right around Cas's waist and there was nothing better.

“I would run away anywhere with you, Dean Winchester,” Cas sighed out, his hands sliding around Dean's shoulders. “Anywhere you wanted, any time. There's lots of places I haven't been. A lot of places where I wore out my welcome, too.”

“Not here,” Dean said. His eyes shone bright and earnest. “As long as I've got a say, you're welcome here.”

“Well, good, 'cause I kinda don't wanna leave. Right here, specifically,” Cas grinned and circled his hips in a tight grind, their clothes rustling together. “Lord, Dean, I have so much I'd like to show you.”

“That right?” Dean grinned, crooked and wanting, his tongue poking pink around his teeth, eyes casting down while his hands smoothed up Cas's shirt, unbuttoning the buttons Cas had only just done up for supper. “Feel like you've showed me a lot, already.”

“Oh, I have, but there's more. I could go for years, sheriff, showing you what I know. I got it all planned out tonight, though.”

“Do you now?”

“Mhmm. Had all that time while you were gone to think it over and I know exactly what I want to show you.”

“What's that?”

“This,” Cas replied simply, moving in place over Dean, his body undulating in a tight circle until he felt what he wanted most through the fabric, Dean's cock stirring against him. “There. Isn't that nice?”

Dean's mouth fell open wider, his breath panting out, fingertips gripping hard at Cas's waist. “That is very nice,” he managed, his own hips hitching up against Cas's body.

“Here,” Cas reached behind him for the whiskey, setting the bottle at Dean's lips and tilting it up. The sheriff drank a few mouthfuls and Cas kissed his neck as they went down. He had more for himself, too, feeling it settle into his bones. “That's better. Just wanna take the edge off. Plus, you won't blow so fast, a little dulled. Not like this morning.”

Dean flushed pink in his cheeks and buried his head against Cas's neck. He was hiding, sure, but he kissed him too, warm and wet and eager. “It'd never felt like that before, is all,” Dean mumbled, his voice rumbling against Cas's skin, “Felt like...like it was right. Different than anything.”

“Mhmm,” Cas hummed, tipping his head back as Dean pulled at his shirt, kissing the revealed skin down his chest like he couldn't get enough. “I knew you'd like it. You're gonna like this too.”

“What? Cause I already do, but what?”

Cas laughed and threw his head back, his fingers scratching through Dean's hair. “What I'm gonna show you. Betting no one's ever done you like how I'm gonna do it. Or if they have, I'm gonna do it better. I can promise you that much.”

“Wish you'd just get on with it,” Dean grumbled.

“I am,” Cas laughed again at Dean's infectious impatience, his eagerness more than adorable. It was perfect, how much Dean wanted him now, sweet and perfect after all he'd said about protecting him, moving out onto the road if they had to. Cas rocked his hips against Dean's in another slow grind. “This's it. I'm doing it.”

“Oh,” Dean laughed breathless, shoving Cas's shirt off his shoulders and stripping down his undershirt too. “Well, good, I like it.”

“You'll like it more once you're inside me.”

Dean couldn't manage a response but he didn't have to; Cas felt it, felt his dick twitch up to full hardness in his pants. He hummed happily, rocking slow against it.

“Yeah, see? I can already feel how much you're gonna like it,” Cas promised him, hard himself in his pants. “Been a while so you gotta work up to it a bit but...Christ, do I ever wanna make you pop off in me. Gonna feel so good.”

“Never tried it like that before,” Dean admitted, although he didn't have to. His face was red when he brought it up from Cas's shoulder.

Cas bent and kissed him full on the mouth, snaking his tongue inside with a moan. Dean was warm in there, tasting of whiskey and the food they'd had, but more than anything of sweet desperation. Cas couldn't believe the same of the whole thing, that Dean, lovely and wanting as he was, hadn't bee so much as touched by another soul in years. And even then, what would it've been like, with some half-repressed puritan woman? Sure, he'd said he'd loved her but from what little Cas understood of the mechanics of heterosexual intercourse, even among married couples, there was a lot of room for disappointment.

Cas couldn't let any of that imagined slight stand right now, not with how he felt about the sheriff.

He'd never felt such ridiculous soaring heights of whatever the hell this was, and he hoped to god Dean felt the same.

From the way he looked up at Cas, he gathered the mutuality of the situation. Dean's head tipped back, his eyes alight and his face a pink-red under freckles and a tan. He looked at Cas like he was the world.

They kissed lazy like that, pawing at clothes as they went until suddenly Cas perched naked atop Dean. Even that felt right, comfortable and wonderful and so good to be naked like that, with someone you trusted instead of someone you were paying and especially when that person stripped underneath you, too.

Dean's hands stroked roughly along his chest, scrabbling at the little bit of hair he had there. For his calloused hands, he was tender at the same time, his mouth opening pliant under Cas's.

“Y'ready to show me, Cas? I'm just about busting here,” Dean said, voice strained higher than usual, his thick cock mashed up against his stomach.

Cas finally reached for it, closing his fist as best he could around Dean's dick and humming in thought. “Guess I can show you, if you think you're ready.”

“You can see I am.”

“Yeah,” Cas sighed dreamily, thumbing at Dean's head, dark red and leaking. He reached behind for the tin of grease he'd left out on the table and moved further up Dean's lap as he handed it to him. Their dicks rubbed together and Cas grabbed for both in his hand, squeezing. “So, y'gotta use your fingers first.”

“Was wondering what that was,” Dean said, but he got the picture quick, opening the tin. “Call this bear grease, don't they? Always seen it in the general store, never figured...”

Cas snorted, kissing him again deep and long, more tongue than anything. “Yeah, it's good for any number of things and opening my ass up is just one of 'em. Just get some on your fingers there, and start touching me back there.”

Dean nodded fast and he did not take his time. A few seconds later, his greased up finger prodded curiously in the cleft of Cas's ass and they both groaned when Dean touched on his hole.

It'd been a long time; truthfully, Cas couldn't recall the last man he'd had like this. Safer, easier to take the top when he traveled but one look at Dean's hands and he ached for it like this. The pad of Dean's finger pressing against his tight hole felt better than he remembered; Dean slipped it inside and Cas moaned broken, his head in Dean's neck, wondering if he might die from pleasure.

“Alright?” Dean asked, just as breathless as Cas.

“Yeah, yeah, do not stop,” Cas urged him on, second-guessing himself quick when Dean pushed his finger in the rest of the way. And if that felt like too much, Cas knew he'd really be in for it in a little while. Hopefully a very very short while.

Cas's body opened smooth for Dean. In a few short minutes, Dean had his first two fingers buried to the knuckle. Cas's dick leaked between them, twitching mercilessly in his hand.

“Really like it, huh?” Dean asked, his eyes wide and mystified at the whole situation. “Can't believe I got two in there.”

“One more,” Cas panted, rocking back against Dean's fingers, optimistic. “One more and then you can sink your cock into me, Dean. That's all it takes.”

“Well, alright,” Dean muttered, nudging at Cas's stuffed hole with finger number three and working it in slow.

Cas regretted it a little, as the stretch consumed him, made him see stars and planets and maybe even Heaven above. “Your fucking fingers,” he muttered, holding still for Dean to take the load. Cas's mouth slacked open, his eyes squeezing shut. He wanted to stay suspended here indefinitely, in this place between fucking where it was just him and Dean and Dean's fingers and the foggy hot air between them.

“Yeah? My fingers got nothing on my dick but you know that already.”

Dean's rough low voice sounded better than anything Cas had ever heard and he wanted more, he wanted all of his dirty talk now and yesterday and forever after that.

“Gonna take it so good,” Cas promised, inching back on those three thick fingers, not stopping until there was nothing left to take. “See? See? C'mon, grease your dick up, let's do it.”

Dean swore, clumsily moving around until Cas had enough of waiting; he grabbed the grease himself and slicked Dean all up with it, stroking him fast. He raised up off Dean's hand and lowered back down onto his cock the very next second, even the brief moment of emptiness too much.

“Oh,whoa – whoa - “ Dean stuttered, hands messy and clean alike digging into Cas's hips as he lowered.

In another minute, Cas had Dean all the way to the balls, trembling at the tight squish of them against his ass. Dean stared at him and Cas stared back, wanting to laugh at the way Dean looked, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, but he couldn't manage it.

The unwavering staring meant enough, a little uncomfortable but Cas liked it that way, with dangerous edges, and he liked it especially in Dean, who looked dangerous but melted soft instead. Cas wanted to do nothing but ride Dean for the foreseeable future, to make him make those _noises_ and squeeze him tight.

The longer it went on, the more reckless they both moved, fast and unrelenting, a kind of battle brewing between them on the creaking chair. Cas didn't know what to say as far as words went anymore and he didn't enjoy the speechlessness. It sucked some of his power right out, but then Dean went wordless too.

Dean dissolved into pants and groans by the, his body sweaty and gloriously naked, rising up when Cas fell, his heels digging into the floor with the effort of pounding into him.

Ages, probably, since Cas actually _came_ like that, without a hand on his cock, entirely from getting fucked. It'd happened before, in Sioux Falls, but this scrubbed clean his memory in a blinding white flash. He started coming on one of his upstrokes and in the next second, Dean rammed up into his again; the tight squeeze of Cas's orgasm had him hammering, bucking wild and out of control.

Dominoes, after that.

Cas made an ever-loving mess, his dick spraying in motion onto Dean's chest, onto Cas's own stomach and then Dean crushed him. He held him down at the waist, pushed up and up, bottoming out with nowhere to go. He wrapped himself around Cas everywhere he could while he came, shuddering deep inside of Cas.

Dean didn't make any noise for a second, then a gasp and then two more, coming more like sobs by the end while he emptied.

Cas wrapped his limbs equally tight around Dean, snaking a hand into his hair and holding him close around the back with the other. He trembled, over-sensitive very suddenly, and unwilling to move past where Dean held him fast. He could deal, he could and would ride this out.

When it ended, he wished it hadn't.

* * *

 

For the second night in a row, Dean Winchester climbed the stairs behind Cas Novak, their hands stuck fast together. Unlike the first night, however, a knock at the door startled Dean and he paused on the stairs, sighing. He squeezed Cas's hand and let it slip free, backtracking to the front door.

As ideas went, answering the door half-drunk and half-dressed was not a good play, but the former made him forget the latter and in only thin drawers, he opened the front door a little too wide, blinking at the petite figure on his porch.

“Oh my _word_ ,” she blurted out, averting her eyes quickly. “I've caught you in bed.”

“Uh...yes, bed,” Dean lied inexpertly, shielding himself around the door with a little stumble. “Mrs. Connolly, is something wrong?”

“No, no, nothing's wrong,” she said hurriedly, her black gloved hand against her brow and her eyes slowly raising, sweeping over the inside of the house. “I only had a few simple matters to discuss with you, today, and perhaps Deputy Fitzgerald forgot to tell you. It's nothing, really. It can wait.”

Dean squinted hard around the door, following her gaze to the hall behind him and sighing softly. Cas Novak peered around the stairs at the door, his blue eyes wide and curious.

“Is that...” Mrs. Connolly started and cut herself off, peering back up at Dean in the doorway. “That is none of my business. Truly. I will see you tomorrow, I hope? I'll drop by the office.”

“It's really not what it looks like,” Dean stammered to explain, even though she'd already let him off the hook, mercifully.

“It doesn't look like _anything_ ,” she told him vehemently, although color rose in her narrow cheeks. “It certainly doesn't look like you're harboring a possible criminal but I must say, of all the places to find said _person_ , this is the safest.”

Dean blinked owlishly, opening his mouth to reply but nothing came out.

Then, across the night, Mrs. Connolly drew closer, her hand curling around the door. “Keep him close, Sheriff Winchester. Keep him _safe_. Whatever they say, it isn't true, and you can trust me on that.”

“I...can?” Dean blinked more, his whiskey-soaked brain slow to react, especially after two straight days of it, and the other mind-melting activities he'd indulged in.

“You _can_. I'll see you tomorrow,” she added the last in a friendly chirp, turning from the door with a silken swish.

Dean watched her leave for a moment and shut the door quietly, with far too much to think about. Cas waited on the stairs and he joined him fast, picking up where they left off, for the most part.

“What was that about?” Cas asked, clomping up ahead of Dean.

“Nothing, I don't think,” Dean sighed out, shaking his head in hopes of clearing it.

It all lay forgotten when, for the second night in a row, they disrobed in pale moonlight and tumbled into bed together. Cas's shoulder made for a lovely pillow under his head, and his heart beat through skin and bones. Dean felt his own synchronize, if such a thing were possible.

If he dreamed at all that night, it was sweet.

 


	5. Chapter 5

The waking up felt something like familiar.

Dean turned in bed to find Cas's side still warm and wondered when, exactly, he'd started thinking of it in those terms. But it felt right like that, waking up and expecting those blue eyes nearby. He'd be just downstairs, Dean knew, just in the kitchen, the cause of those delicious smells again.

Coffee. Bacon.

A fellow could get used to this sort of thing.

Dean _had_ been used to it, back east. Even when he'd kept the strange hours of a beat cop and the stranger of a detective, there'd been Lisa with food waiting, with strong, dark coffee to get him through the nights or the mornings. As recently as two years ago, but in another lifetime entirely.

This worked too. Dean got dressed quicker than the morning before, fully, down to his badge and his belts, all piled neatly on a chair in the corner of the bedroom. He didn't remember brushing and folding them there like that, knew for a fact they'd disrobed downstairs. So it must've been Cas.

Dean smiled, thinking on him. _Cas_.

Cas sat fully clothed this time, ready at the table and likely already at the whiskey from the little pink glow in his cheeks. Man-made or otherwise, it looked healthy. Dean swooped down to kiss him on his cheek, above his clean beard, flattening a hand on his warm upper back. He lingered longer when Cas turned into it.

“This is becoming a forte, I think,” Dean teased him, sitting down gratefully to yet another breakfast. The coffee steamed hot and everything looked perfect and Dean felt perfect again, too, or at least felt a rosy veneer over everything.

“I'm sure I told you I made an excellent housewife. If I didn't, I meant to,” Cas told him, smiling sly over his coffee. “I thought you'd come down here with some speech about how this can't turn into a habit or an attachment or something like that.”

Dean raised his eyebrows, wondering why he'd expect such a thing from him, after last night. So far as Dean had it, they may as well see a priest and get hitched, if they could find one like that. He pushed some beans and crisp potatoes around on his plate, the pretty green and white china he'd sent for from London. Maybe Cas wanted to get booted. Maybe it'd be an easier end than the running, in the light of day. “Did you now?”

“Mhmm. See, I'm kind of a master at overstaying my welcomes. Usually by a few weeks. Months, even, if the party providing is exceedingly polite. And you should know the terms of my staying most places doesn't include such amenities as I've afforded you.”

Dean couldn't help smiling again, nodding back towards his plate, glad Cas didn't get up to this with everyone, everywhere.

Dean swallowed a big mouthful of hot coffee, glancing now and then at Cas. He waited so patient and sweet for Dean to talk and here, Dean had no idea what to say. But the silence overstepped comfort and he opened his mouth anyway.

“I honestly do not know what to do with you as of right now, Cas Novak. Rightfully, you're still on the books, in the jail. Rightfully, you're still drying out downtown. I could easily erase all that. I could write you down as transferred to county and then you could just go missing. Happens often enough, and it'd buy you time to light out wherever you were planning on going next. And then, hopefully you'd have the good sense to leave the state. Takes county a while to figure things, but it doesn't take them forever. So there's one option right there.”

Dean surprised himself that the ruse came out so smooth but it seemed viable enough. Cas nodded, waiting out the rest.

“Or I could _actually_ give you over to county. And you could learn some lessons about the _demon liquor_ , as they have a program for drunks, from what I've heard. And they'd release you clean and sober into a bright new world a few months from now. That'd be the responsible option.”

Dean had no intent on following through, but he wanted Cas to know the bullets dodged.

“I'll pass.”

“I figured.”

“Option the third?”

“Well, Christ, I don't know.” Dean shoved back from the table, breakfast finished, head nearing empty with all the _thinking_ coming out of his mouth. He'd never talked so much with anyone else, really, and now Cas got the brunt of his bad manners too. Dean went for his hat and Cas swept in beside him, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

“Number three?”

Dean propped his hat up with his index finger and swung in close, winding an arm around Cas's waist and pulling him close so they fit together. “Number three, I think, is you stay here. You stay right here with me, Novak, and we figure the rest out later.”

It was not a good plan but it seemed it, in the glow of the morning, with Cas pressing hot against him, his pretty mouth open like an invitation. Dean took it, kissing him hard in the doorway.

His clock struck inside and he counted himself late for the second time in as many days. He flung the front door open but couldn't manage to tear himself away.

In the doorway, Dean stood on the porch and Cas on the threshold. No one around, Dean leaned in to kiss him again, soft and sweet, like he supposed it'd been before. In the light of day, in the fresh clean air, it was even better.

* * *

 

It took Cas Novak all morning to sweep up the mud-caked, dirty floors. He tied a bandanna over his face to keep from coughing, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd done anything so decidedly domestic. The types of places he kept to, no one expected you to clean up after yourself. But here he was.

Just after noon, he'd finished ushering the last morsel of dust off the back porch and that, of course, deserved a celebratory swig of whiskey. Maybe two. Two and he'd call it the last for the time being.

The floors swept, Cas found a bucket and scrubbed at the boards. They came up light pine and beautifully clean, worth the backache he'd feel for a few days. He reasoned that Dean Winchester had a busy job. He needed someone to help him out like this, to keep his things in order. It didn't hurt, either, to look for more ways to get in the sheriff's good graces, besides just kissing him at the door like an obedient Christian wife.

He didn't think he fit that bill, anyway.

But it had felt good. _Right_. More right than in the tent-town with no name, with the pretty whore he'd thought himself falling for. Maybe that wasn't love. Maybe just getting his brain sucked out of his cock wasn't anything lie love at all, because he'd lain chaste next to Dean all night and felt butterflies when he woke and saw him there.

He'd watched him for a good while, too, marking the rise and fall of his chest, the sweet, relaxed expression on his face. His lips were certainly to die for, parted and pink in slumber, just a little wet. And beautiful nose, the turned up little thing, a straight triangle from the side but cocked a little to the left like it'd been broken once or twice. Cas longed suddenly to see the virility of Dean in a fight, bare-fisted and confident. But his eyelashes were the real showpiece, dark fans on his cheeks, kissing at his freckles. He hadn't woke when Cas kissed him there, so Cas decided never to say anything about his morning reverie.

The chores went faster, too, thinking about Sheriff Winchester.

Around two, he set about dusting the upstairs, the storied room Dean would never share with his wife, but that he shared with Cas. It didn't need much work, all told. He went out back to shake out the bedspread that still smelled of Dean, when the first horse rounded the corner.

“Ho, here he is!”

The shout came from a man astride a white-grey horse, a shotgun across his saddle and another pair of guns at his hips.

Cas watched curiously as he approached, blinking, shielding his eyes to the heavy afternoon sun. All too late, he realized, as the rest of the posse rounded the corner, that they were after him. The mob. They had to be it.

Cas didn't count himself a fighter, not anymore. Most passions had gone out of him months, years ago. He backed up against the outside wall, the blanket clutched between his fingers, painfully aware of his lack of arms.

They stopped in front of him and parted for a huge black horse, spurred on by Richard Mayweather. Of course. Cas recognized him from the jailhouse, as the man he'd unleashed a torrent of vomit onto, more or less, and the man still regarded him with similar disgust.

“And here you are,” Mayweather said smoothly, dismounting. His boots scuffed up dirt as he stepped onto the newly-cleaned porch.

Cas mourned a little over his hard work.

“If you know what's good for you, you'll come with us peaceably. We only want to talk, you see, about the cattle disappearing, the train job, and, perhaps, a lever little fellow called Buddy, if you remember. And, perhaps, if you feel inspired to confess to some other crimes, such as colluding with this law-breaking sheriff, well, we'll certainly listen to whatever you've got to say on the subject.” Mayweather stopped talking, stopped approaching and smiled a wormy smile, holding out a hand. “What'll it be?”

Not all men were so rational as Dean Winchester, Cas thought. Men who formed mobs were, generally, not to be trifled with.

But still.

Cas threw the blanket at Richard Mayweather and scrambled back inside, slamming the door shut, looking around wildly for something to barricade the entrance with, but found nothing at the ready. He ran down the hall and tried to move the couch, jamming up the narrow space but the men already streamed in the door.

Rushing for the front, Cas heard footsteps there too, on the front porch, and the silvery piston noise of guns being cocked.

Maybe they wouldn't kill him yet; he hadn't harmed anyone, only ran.

He backtracked to the kitchen. The stove had gone off but a grease-filled skillet sat on top, heavy and as good a weapon as any.

Cas brandished it in the kitchen doorway, clocking one man in the face with a robust swing and a sickening crack, and he swung at another before they pinned his wrist and squeezed hard. The man he'd hit bled free all over the floor, his nose crushed and his consciousness suspect, and the man that held Cas stared in revulsion at the scene, his grip slacking a little.

Cas kicked him in the jewels, stomped on his foot and ducked around the pair, leaping over the couch – the chesterfield – on the way.

The front door flew open, swinging half-broken on its hinges and two men grabbed him from behind. Strong arms wrapped around his waist and took a tight grip on his legs, too. It took him a minute to figure he'd been bound at the ankles; they let him up for sport and he shuffled to get away, smacking the clean ground.

They laughed; it sounded like multitudes but counted more like seven men. Seven against one was enough.

Cas tried to get up again, wriggling to his knees, but a swift kick in the ribs from Richard Mayweather had him back on the ground and groaning. The silvery tip of the black boots was the last thing he remembered, racing at top-speed towards his head.

* * *

 

Unsurprisingly, Dean's lateness was again excused. The town did not burn down, nor did any murders occur. The door to his office stood wide open, warm and inviting and Deputy Fitzgerald said not a thing about his lack of timeliness. Maybe he didn't even notice.

Dean took his belt off, slung it on the back of his chair and smoothed some papers out over his desk, signing and dating all manner of things. The usual. He took more coffee. He listened to the breeze whistle through the town.

He wondered if, maybe, he could take more time off, more days that weren't Sundays. If maybe he worked too hard and if maybe he did deserve a break.

A break meant more of Cas Novak, more than anything. He wasn't certain he deserved all that attention but it was nice.

He found himself day-dreaming about the possible criminal. Day-dreaming about how he looked with his under-suit all turned down, about how his mouth felt, about how the kiss in the open door had been, somehow, one of the best of his whole life.

Dean frowned to himself, got up for another mug of coffee, all grinds, so he poured it out the door into the dirt.

Hooves pounded to the west, five or more horses, out of the ordinary.

No traffic on main street, only old man Willis sweeping the boards in front of his general store, his head tilted too towards the commotion, his broom briefly stilled.

Dean hopped out onto the dirt ad watched a group go east, now, watched them without context. Who on earth would be speeding so fierce like that, and why? Why did anyone have cause to leave Alderson in such a rush?

Dean hovered between giving chase himself or calling out his deputy to have a turn, at least to figure out where they were headed so fast. The dust covered them all on the back but it'd leave a clear trail for hours to come. He had time to decide.

At least, he figured he had time.

Not a minute later, another horse tore up the main road, dark chestnut with a slight rider, a child or a young boy, Dean took it for at first, until they stopped closer.

The slight figure was a woman's, in trousers and a wide-brimmed hat, her blonde hair a well-confined twist at her neck and her countenance familiar.

“Mrs. Connolly?” Dean squinted up at her, his hand shielding the sun.

“Jo, please? Listen, that was Richard Mayweather, raising hell up from your house, sheriff,” she explained breathlessly, a gloved hand tensing on the horse's reigns. “I'm fairly sure they've got Novak,” she added more quietly.

Dean's blood cooled for a moment while it sunk in, a pit of dread in his stomach. Uneasy, and worse, afraid, he shouted, “Go, I'll follow,” already turning on his heels.

His hands shook reaching for his hat, for his coat and a scarf to sling over his face in the dust of midday. Jo's horse raised away, he heard it, and his heart pounded as fast as the sound.

They had Cas.

If they had Cas, if they did something to him? Dean knew he'd never rein his temper in. He wouldn't even start. A whole imagined life stretched out, dead-ended in front of him. Had that been last the breakfast? The last morning he'd see Novak? It was too gruesome to think on for that long, and that in and of itself worried Dean.

He didn't think to pack more than what was already on his person. He unhitched his horse desperately fast and set off as best he could after the hoof-prints in the dry mud.

* * *

 

The afternoon shifted things. It cast strange shadows across a rugged landscape, made trees look gnarled and gutted in profile, skeletons scrabbling out of the earth. The scrub brush rustled dry and near dead as Dean and Jo's horses scraped by at an easy pace.

It'd been hours. The tracks split and Dean'd picked the wrong way, not listening to Jo. Now they were retracing, following the fruitful path to a woodsy clearing in the middle of goddamned nowhere. The adrenaline that piked hours ago just left Dean jumpy and tired, now.

And confused. God almighty, was he confused.

Jo eased her horse to a stop and hopped down, expertly capable somehow, when before, he'd only seen her on carriages. The outfit she wore was, of course, unheard of; trousers and a tailored shirt, worn-in boots. The attitude even, felt altogether different than the widow he'd been breaking bread with for a few weeks.

She cut a daring figure and Dean felt grateful for her interference, no matter what the circumstances. When she got off her horse, Dean followed, joining her by a tree. She shot him a wary look and parted the foliage with her hands, sighing.

Behind the bushes and trees, a lean-to stood, with train tracks running out of it, to the east, as far as they could see.

“They have a private rail. I can't say that I'm shocked.”

“A private...well, I'm goddamned shocked. What the hell do they have that for?”

“The trains in this state are owned by the same conglomerate as the ranches,” Jo explained, shooting him a somewhat dirty look as she strode towards the tracks, bending and examining them. “Didn't you know?”

“I...no,” Dean grumbled, perturbed that, again, she had more information than him. “How am I supposed to know about all these business dealings and whatnot? I'm just a sheriff.”

“I was under the impression you were on a police force in a former life,” Jo squinted at him, standing again and wiping her gloves on her doeskin trousers. “Did you leave all your investigative sense back east, Sheriff Winchester? It pays to keep abreast on your county's special interests. And your state's. Which are the same as everyone's in this godforsaken place. Cows and rails, which means money for a handful of already wealthy men.”

“Right,” Dean said, watching her mount up in a quick motion, unhindered by the usual skirts. “How d'you know all this?”

“I'm a private investigator,” Jo answered quickly, her eyes scanning the horizon. “I can assure you we're on the same side and after the same thing. Mount up,we need to go back.”

“Back?” Dean blinked at her, gesturing towards the tracks that lay ahead. “Back to town when we've got this to follow? Mrs - “

“Jo!”

“ _Jo_ , it must be miles. We've got to go and get Novak. Assuming it's the same posse - “

“It is - “

“Then they're going to hang him for something he didn't do. Or worse.”

“What's worse than – no, never mind. I don't want to know. Listen. _Listen_. We have nothing. No water, no food. Our horses have been at it all day. These tracks will be here still in a few hours, that's just long enough to get provisions and some fresh rides, some back up, and head out again. We have a better chance this way.” Jo explained, nothing pleading about her tone. She took charge and Dean wanted to fight, like he always wanted to fight, but he knew deep down that she was in the right. Again.

“Alright,” he sighed, defeated, looking longingly up the track as the light faded fast. “Alright, we'll go back,” he spoke quietly, mounting up again. He committed every mile home to memory, made a mental map to follow later, for when they undoubtedly recused Cas Novak.

* * *

 

Cas Novak woke up tied to a chair and there was a first time for everything, he figured. It wasn't even a comfortable chair; stiff and high in all the wrong places. The rope wore at his wrists and, annoyingly, at his ankles too. He squirmed as soon as he started opening his eyes but everything felt tight, knotted up where his fingers couldn't reach.

Tight things eased with time though, Cas knew that as well as anyone. Maybe he just needed time.

He stopped struggling and grunted, craning his head to study the room. It wasn't a room, really. More of a barn. Exactly like a barn, only without horses. Hay and tools, rakes and pitchforks and the like, stood just out of reach, leaning on weathered walls.

To his left, something scrambled to life and he saw a young man on his feet, his eyes wide and surprised. “He's awake, he's 'wake!” the kid bellowed in a newly-low voice, squeaking and cracking.

“My head, please,” Cas grumbled. His head, indeed; it throbbed and not in the way of a hangover. It throbbed from the _outside_ in. His tongue felt fuzzy and heavy in his mouth and his skin pricked up itchy all over.

“Kid, hey, I need a drink,” he went for the gut, didn't bother with niceties or the pretty eyes he used sometimes. “Whiskey, if you've got it. Just...my mouth's awful dry.”

“I'm not - “ the kid started, his hands quivering a little as his eyes fell on the prisoner. “I'm not supposed to talk to you none, nor give you nothing to drink or eat.”

“Alright, so, our little secret?” Cas raised his eyebrows, badly faking a smile. “C'mon, just a little something, one little sip. No one has to know.”

Cas saw the kid's flask tucked into his belt, though whiskey or water he couldn't discern. Of course he wanted the former, more concerned with his churning guts and the tremble that crept into his very bones when he was without, although he might not have complained about water at this point either.

Well, maybe a little.

He watched the kid's bony fingers caress the silver flask, his face drawn in indecision. Cas wouldn't beg again but he came close and he knew he cut a goddamned pathetic figure, like this, trussed up, probably halfway to green in the face by now.

Finally, after an age, the kid unscrewed the silver cap and walked over carefully, with an eye on the door.

It was bad, whatever he brought up to Cas's mouth, but Cas swallowed it gratefully, the sting familiar and terrible all at once. He didn't choke, though; been years since anything made him choke, drink or otherwise.

“Thank you,” he gasped, the air cooling the alcohol on his lips even as he tried to lick it off. “What uh, what time's it anyway?”

The kid, now at ease, had a swig of his own while he pulled out a pocket-watch, engraved to match the flask, of all things. Had to be rich, Cas figured, the son of one of these goons who'd spirited him away. Some rich rancher's kid, doing what his father tells him too.

“It's night-time, mister. It's after nine.”

“Bedtime for you soon, huh?” Cas tried a joke and it didn't land, just made the kid's face crease up angry as he pulled away.

Touchy. But then he was probably all of sixteen and it didn't get much touchier than that.

The door swung open and they both jumped, Cas in his bonds and the boy enough to drop the watch so it dangled in the lantern light, red-orange fire against silver.

“Goddammit, son, I'd have bought you something considerably less fancy if I knew you'd be dropping it all the blasted time.” It was Mayweather of course, the man who'd tried to get him hanged once already without so much as an investigation, for the twin crimes of the train robbery and some vague cattle rustling. The man who, somehow, knew all about that tent-city.

“He's awake,” the kid said again, fumbling to put his watch back into his waistcoat, nodding towards Cas.

“I heard,” his apparent father said flatly, finally turning to look at Cas.

Hard as it was, he managed a friendly nod. “There has been such a misunderstanding,” he started, trying to put some laughter into his voice, “If you'd just let me explain the whole thing, I think you'll really feel quite foolish and almost certainly release me. It's all just mistaken identity, I think. I know I've got quite a nondescript look and -

A hand across Cas's cheek cut him off. He saw stars. His head pounded even worse and his jaw screamed in pain but he only blew out a breath and righted his gaze back to the man.

“You didn't let me explain.”

Mayweather crowded in close, hands on Cas's upper arms, gripping in to his skin. “You were in that mining town, couple weeks back. At the whore house.”

Was _that_ what everything was about? The place where he'd lost – at that point – his only friend and companion?

“Did I not pay my tab at the bar? I don't have any cash on me, mind you, but I can arrange maybe a payment plan. Doesn't look like you need to call it in, though. How much that watch set you back?”

Another crack across Cas's face, the same side. He felt a tooth loosen itself in it's moorings, spat out the coppery taste of his own blood.

“What did he tell you? That whore you engaged?”

“The...well, nothing. We had a working relationship. Didn't even know his last name, to be honest.”

Was that why Buddy'd been done in? He knew too much? Too much about what? Cas needed to get this bearings, needed some goddamned booze in order for that to happen and at present, he was nothing but a throbbing pile of very dry pain.

“I've been asking nice,” Mayweather hissed in his face and Cas couldn't hold back a chuckle, knowing it must look grotesque to laugh with blood on his lips.

“This is nice? Nice would be pouring me a drink, sir, being that you catch more flies with honey.”

“This is about as nice as I get. We've been tracking you. Lost you for a while. But we can't let someone with all this knowledge just slip away, you see. It's been convenient to put you up for the train job and the cattle and I don't mind tying the noose before I've got the full story. The town, you know, they're clamoring for answers. The sheriff, too. You're as good as scapegoat as any. Some kinda queer drifter, can't function without half his blood thinned by liquor. But, I'm going to ask one last time. What'd that whore tell you of our operation?”

Cas furrowed his brow, which hurt, and puffed out a long sigh, which also hurt.

Buddy hadn't told him anything.

They'd laid in bed most of the time, drunk-talking to each other, making up vague plans and daydreams, verbally constructing future's that'd never happen, alone or together. It'd been nice, really. As nice as anything. A warm body and some sweet talk and it wasn't like he'd loved him or anything, not like...

_Shit_.

Cas Novak felt a cool prickle up his spine, fear or something near there. It wasn't like it was with Dean Winchester.

These past few days were the heights of indulgence, were spectacular in his mind, verdant fields of glory. He brought Dean's face to mind so easily, the crinkles in the corners of his eyes when he smiled, the freckles bridging his perfect nose. His mouth, his mouth in the morning sun, in the door where they'd kissed goodbye and God almighty, Jesus Christ and all the saints and angels, he loved Sheriff Dean Winchester.

And he'd die here. And he'd never see Dean again.

He swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut, balling his hand into fists in the restraints.

“I don't know anything,” he said plainly, honestly. “I don't know anything about any operation. I had no foreknowledge of your whole...train thing. I swear to you, I don't -

The next slap came hard, came with a friend right after and Cas's vision swum, the barn blurring out, the buzzing in his ears overwhelming, so it was something like a relief when he shut his eyes and drifted out of consciousness.

* * *

 

It'd been a while since Dean Winchester packed up his horse for an overnight, cross-land journey. He'd done a few tours out in the scrub and flat flat nothing, usually with his deputy or some men from the county offices. Never, of course, with the widow Connolly.

“I'm not actually a widow,” she endeavored to explain as best she could. “My name's Jo Harvelle and - “

“Are you a Pinkerton?” Dean asked finally, securing a bedroll near his horse's back haunches, peering at the girl's light blue eyes. “Because I'm from Massachusetts, you know, I've got experience with this kind of thing, if you are. Better to just come clean and tell me.”

“Not exactly,” she drawled, sighing and pressing a gloved hand to her forehead, “It's my mother, she runs sort of a...rival agency to Mr. Pinkerton's. A little more down and dirty, I don't mind telling you.”

“Alright,” Dean accepted this, chewing down some jerked meat she'd handed him; he hadn't felt his stomach grumble until he saw it. “And you're after Cas Novak.”

“No. I've been following him, yes, in a roundabout kind of way, ever since the mining camp.”

“Because of the murder.”

“Yes, exactly. It was one of mother's many informants who got killed that night and Novak was a suspect, yes, but...well, as you know, spend five minutes with that mess and you'll see he's nothing but a kitten.”

Dean nodded tersely, glad, at least, to have someone in his corner regarding the matter of Cas Novak's innocence.

“It's a big confusing tangled up mess, really,” Jo sighed, filling her last canteen with water at the pump in front of Dean's house. It was still a wreck inside, bearing all the hallmarks of the ambush. “I found a letter from this informant, never mailed to us, but detailing a scheme all across the state. Insurance money from train robberies and cattle rustling, all of it false. When I wired back to mother, well, she put me in charge of sorting this whole thing out. Finding evidence, you know? Insurance companies pay top dollar for information concerning fraudulent claims. It's a bit boring.”

“But it's exciting too,” Dean finished for her, noting the glow in her face. “Why not bring the evidence to the marshal, or the governor?”

“We don't know how far it goes, up the chain of command. These are powerful men, and powerful men all hang around together and scheme and murder each other and lackeys and...more trouble than it's worth, until we know for sure. Are you ready?”

Dean digested everything as best he could and made one last check around his horse and nodded back towards the town. “A quick stop for more ammunition? Do you carry anything?”

Jo's face fell into an easy smile and she nodded. “I have knives just about everywhere but I wouldn't be opposed to a firearm, if you've got one to spare.”

He did; he'd stocked the sheriff's office to the brim as if to arm a militia. He gave her the key to the appropriate closet and cursed; the telegraph machine churned out something, like nails on a chalkboard and he cursed again once he saw what it said.

A missive from the governor's office, relieving him of his duties.

He was still cursing it when Jo came back around, two rifles in her hands. “What?” she barked, snatching the paper and trading him for a gun. “Oh, please.”

She ripped the paper in two, and then four, and then countless fluttery little pieces. “There, you never received such a thing, and you never were made aware of your situation.”

Dean swallowed hard, ill at ease with the entire thing. Why now? Why in the goddamned dead of night? “I can't just...I have a duty, and they'll know it was sent and - “

“Here,” Jo sighed, brushing past him to the clicky little machine. She squatted and followed the cord, a thin thing sticking out of the wall, and with a tug and a few sparks, she pulled it free. “Oh dear, it seems to be broken.” She smirked at the frayed end of the cording and let it drop onto the floor. “There,” she said, patting his chest as she walked by, grabbing back the gun. “As far as we know, you're still the sheriff.”

It didn't feel right, but Dean didn't have the time to consider black and white right now. A minute later, they were mounted again, sprinting fast to the outskirts of town in search of that strange, clandestine rail line that, hopefully, would let him right to Cas Novak.


	6. Chapter 6

So this was how the other half lived.

Dean Winchester took a long, slow circle around the ranch, the property stretching further than his eye could even see, off into the hills and probably beyond. There were enough buildings for a small town erected at odd angles near what had to be the main house, a sprawling ranch-style one-story that could easily contain five of his little house.

The land was mostly cleared but for a few big old trees around, maybe natural or maybe moved from somewhere else. It was hard to tell in the dark how everything really fit together.

And it was _dark_ , pitch black, after midnight.

And yet, in the house in front of him, lights were burning.

Well, back home in Alderson, all the sensible folks would be in bed by now.

As if the private rail wasn't enough of a red flag, this too.

And the fact that, beyond all the houses, a bright orange light shone out of the slats in the barn? Well.

Dean knew they were wandering into a trap but he kept circling the houses and waiting and eventually, there it was, a stealth-silent horse springing out from behind one of the buildings, and cold iron being waved Dean's way, glinting off the moonlight.

“Sheriff Winchester,” someone said, a man, and he didn't know him, didn't know the ugly scrunched up face peering back at him from under a hat. Probably, he was one of the posse from before. Probably he thought of himself as a big, big man.

In any case, he didn't let Dean say a word; as soon as his mouth opened, the man cracked Dean across the cheek with his pistol.

It wasn't hard enough but Dean feigned dropping off his horse slow, collapsing into the dirt at an awkward angle. And he bought it, too, this posse-member. A second later, Dean felt strong hands dragging him the few feet towards the barn. The man kicked a door open and kept hauling, dragging Dean through hay and muck, into the oppressively warm barn. The fool didn't even disarm Dean until they were inside.

It didn't smell of animals. Just lamp oil and hay and ...

And this _other_ scent, underneath or over top, scratching familiar in the back of his head, in the way scents did when you were at a loss to remember them but you wanted to.

Dean wanted to.

He didn't trust himself to open his eyes for a second though, and kept playing dead. Easy enough, since his face really did hurt from the gun. His body was bone-tired but he was drawn wire-taut anyway, ready for what action he could take.

“Ain't you gonna say hi to your friend?” The man or someone else sneered as two sets of hands hauled Dean up onto a chair. He held his hands slack, made himself seem bigger so that when the tied him up, it'd be too loose. That being the idea, anyway.

He let his head droop onto his chest and kept his limbs slack, so only the ropes really held him up onto the chair. Truthfully, he felt like he could fall off it as it were.

Boots scuffled in the hay and a door creaked, maybe open and shut and voices rose out behind it, enough that Dean bared to open his eyes.

Barn, yes. Just hay and tools, old worn boards.

Strangest of all, warm flesh against his back and then – the _smell_.

It'd been Cas. And it was Cas now, when Dean turned his sore neck as far as it could go, Cas staring at him put of one swollen eye, his face a mass of redness and bruisery.

Dean stared, his breath hitched in his throat for the longest time. He felt Cas's fingers against his own, both tied behind their backs in the chairs, but close, enough room to twist around each other. Dean sighed and clutched at Cas as best he could, taking his eyes off him to squeeze them shut, to crane his head to the ceiling.

“You're so stupid, getting caught like this,” Cas said, at last. His voice rang with emotion, with relief and disbelief and a thousand other things, a secret shared fondness evident.

“Speak for yourself,” Dean managed, eventually, his own voice tight, constricted like his chest was, like his muscles, like everything. Everything squeezed out of him and his heart pounded fast, so fast. “This is a good look for you, y'know. Trussed up. I'm surprised they didn't gag you too.”

“They've found knocking me unconscious to be more fruitful, apparently. Christ, but I've got a banger of a headache. You don't have anything to drink on you, do you?”

“Cas - “

“Oh, if you could really see me, you'd see how green I am. I'm counting down to the big show. I had a swig of moonshine off some kid but that was hours ago. I think hours, it's hard to tell.”

“It's night,” Dean supplied, swallowing hard, “It's after midnight. I've been riding all day.”

“My hero.”

“Not yet.”

Dean squirmed in the bonds and it was strangely nice, feeling Cas there, a solid wall of familiar flesh.

“Is it just you? Please say you brought an army. They keep parading men in here like they've got a whole force.”

“It's uh, it's me. And Jo Connolly. That is Jo Harvelle, apparently. From town. Did you meet her? I don't think - “

“The little blonde that came knocking at your door last night? Yeah. I remember her. That's real helpful, Dean. You picked the tiniest woman in town to come rescue me.”

“No-no, you don't understand. She's uh, she's a private investigator, actually. She's been following you. Haven't you noticed?”

Cas snorted out a laugh, his fingers clutching harder at Dean's. “Oh, Dean. I don't look at girls. Barely even in passing, except to admire the cut of a dress or the flowers on a hat. If she's been after me, well, she's hidden herself well. Is she on my case too? Trying to bring me to justice?”

“No, or else clearly, she could have arrested you numerous times. No, it's the opposite. She knows you didn't kill that fellow. Or do _any_ of this. Fellow was one of hers. A spy, you know? Probably one of these guys got to him.”

Cas hummed, the noise low and sweet in the quiet. “Well, that's why they've been asking so thoroughly as to what he told me.”

Dean filled with dread all of a sudden, feeling it sing through his bones, “What did he tell you?”

“What? Oh, nothing. All we talked about were day-dreams. Pie-eyed wishes for the future. That kind of shit.”

“Like us.”

“No,” Cas answered and Dean heard the smile there, “Not like us at all. I was thinking on that, earlier. Us.”

Dean squirmed in place even more but there was nowhere to go and it was unavoidable, wasn't it? That conversation, girlish though it was, had to happen. Cas felt lucky Dean was tied up.

“Us, huh?” Dean swallowed, forced out a rough chuckle about it. “What's there to think on? Only known each other a few days. Nights, mostly. Doesn't mean there's anything much to talk about, does there?”

He lied through his teeth and wondered if Cas felt his heart pounding through his back, where they were crammed together with only some thin rails of chair in the way.

“I like you,” Cas continued anyway, “I mean...I'm comfortable with you. And I think you are with me, so I think - “

They both jumped as the door swung open again, whacking into the wall. Three men stomped in, including Richard Mayweather and his son.

“Sheriff Winchester,” he greeted him, a wide smile under his bilious mustache. “Or should I say former Sheriff Winchester? Or did you not get those orders? Still got that badge on, so I have to say, I'm a bit confused.” He held something tight in one fist but with his right, he ripped the brass badge from Dean's brown jacket, regarding it coolly before tossing it into the hay. Dean watched it shine out of the yellow straw, the lamplight catching on the edges.

But Dean said nothing, just glared evenly and waited. The quieter he kept, he figured, the more this man would spill, even unintentionally. For his part, Cas took Dean's lead and kept silent behind him, although their fingers still grappled together, a sweet reminder that Dean surely needed.

After some sullen silence, Mayweather took out what'd been in his other hand, and tossed it into Dean's lap.

He knew it at once. A green velvet purse with a gold clasp, with an arrangement of flowers embroidered delicately on each side. The initials on the back, which he couldn't see, still read 'LB' but the front said, sweepingly in black and gold, 'LBW' and Dean's heart constricted for seeing it. It sat heavy on his lap, heavier than he'd ever known it to be in the past, and he wasn't sure if memory compromised him.

“It's just as full as I could stuff it,” Mayweather told him, standing above him with his arms crossed. “I'm thinking you're a smart man, Winchester, even if you've come out this far to rescue your lackey. Stupid men don't keep town's lawful and peaceable, like you've done. Stupid men don't reject gifts, either. Take it, with my apologies at your family getting involved. Trust me when I say that was not my intention. Take the purse, Winchester, and ride back home. Find a new town to start over. Forget this whole thing. What do you say?”

Dean swallowed, his eyes fixed on the purse, still.

It would be easy, to scoop it up and head out somewhere else. The state brimmed with towns both forgiving and fruitful. And from the feel of the purse on his lap, he wouldn't have to worry about working for a while. A whole year, even and wouldn't that be nice? No worrying about bar fights or abused women. No moral decisions left up to him. No reckonings to dish out.

But no Cas Novak.

Not in his bed and not at the stove. Not in the doorway to kiss or to run his bath. To touch him like no one had, not just in a long time, but ever. No purse was worth that, stuffed or not.

The warmth of Cas against his back was bliss, and their fingers together meant more than anything anyone else had to say. He had to find a way to get them out of this.

Dean muttered nonsense, squirming in his bonds, his green eyes flickering quickly up to the rancher, who begged his pardon and leaned down.

Too perfect, really.

Dean launched forward with a crack, ramming his head into Mayweather's as hard as he could. He saw stars but Mayweather fell flat on his ass into the hay, and it was so worth it, even if one of his men came right up and backhanded Dean into something like submission.

So, so worth it.

* * *

 

Jo Harvelle didn't mind the west. She didn't mind the out of doors, or horses. She loved a rough ride and a mystery and even a spot of violence. But she did not take pleasure in having to rescue people, nor arrest them. She knew her limitations and she'd known riding out down the private rail that she and the sheriff alone couldn't take the whole ranch.

Luckily, she had reinforcements at the ready. At least Jo hoped they were still at the ready; mercenaries tended to drift off when the action lulled and things had been quiet for weeks. So far as she knew, the encampment was still viable.

After Dean disappeared, she hung back knowing he'd been taken the same as Cas Novak, hopefully to the same place, as they'd planned. It wasn't an easy plan but nothing about this investigation was easy. It hadn't started easy and it wasn't likely to end that way either.

She'd watched men move from the barn to the main house and back again, two and then three. And then one, back to the sprawling main house. More like a mansion, she thought, repressing a sneer and creeping closer.

The train whistle behind her made her jump and cram tinier under a windowsill, small as she could be in the bushes, which was incredibly small. Thankfully.

Jo knew from all the studying up about the state, the county and so on, that the man stepping off the small one-car-one-engine private train was the governor. The same as had fired Dean, earlier in the evening. And here he was to collude with Mayweather and the ranchers, apparently.

It left a bad taste in her mouth but also excited her sense of espionage, the little part of her that loved solving such puzzles people gave her. It was her job, after all.

The governor was greeted warmly at the front door by Richard Mayweather himself, Jo saw peeking around the corner. She moved back under the window as she heard it open, the stench of cigars wafting out immediately. Glasses clinked inside, too, and strong, untroubled voices drifted out.

Another half-minute of listening, and she scrambled away, excitement bubbling up inside of her as she pointed the gun high into the sky and lit off the flare, watching it soar and explode.

Now the only thing left was the waiting.

* * *

 

Cas Novak figured they both hurt equally now, him and Dean.

He'd listened – but not watched – Dean get roughed up for his actions, the refusal to take what seemed to be a hefty bribe, and the headbutt, and honestly, just hearing it, Cas ached in sympathy and for his own very real beatings.

“What a pair we are,” Cas sighed, feeling Dean's head sag back against him. They hadn't stopped holding hands, no matter how bad it'd been; Cas used the minor contact to reassure Dean they'd be okay, somehow.

He had no idea how, though.

“Lord, my head,” Dean groaned, “Feels like it's gonna split in half.”

“My head feels that way most mornings, if I'm being honest,” Cas told him, trying to ignore the crawling sensation that seemed to replace his skin, and the deep-seated nausea that overtook his guts. “Christ, I need a drink.”

“Makes two of us.”

“Did you come in here with a plan? Or did you just want to get tied up with me? Y'know, I read some stories about that once.”

“About what?”

“Getting tied up. For uh, amorous means.”

“People are _strange_.”

“It's true. Weren't half-bad, the stories. Still. I don't feel particularly amorous right now. Kinda just wanna crawl into a dark hole and sleep for a couple years.”

“I'm right behind you.”

Cas smiled even though it hurt; he knew Dean was with him. But for how long? Time together was wonderful but under these circumstances? Facing death back to back? Cas felt his guts take a turn and put it out of his mind, winding his fingers with more vigor against Dean's.

For the first time, he realized he could reach the knots. And he laughed.

“What?” Dean asked quietly, clipped and tired.

“I've never been good at undoing knots,” Cas muttered, squinting thoughtfully as his fingers maneuvered. “How 'bout you?”

“Knots? Well, sure. Thought for a few years I'd end up at sea. So we practiced knots a lot. One of the only real things my dad taught me, I think. The only thing of substance, at least, besides never trust a drunk.”

“How far did that advice take you?” Cas chuckled at him, longing to see his sweet face.

“Had me pretty good up until a few days ago, to be honest. Hey, what're you doing back there?”

“Knots,” Cas explained, working at them, the rough rope scraping at his fingertips. “Yours are loose, and I think I can get them.”

“Oh Lord, why didn't I think of that?”

“You were too busy having your head bashed in.”

“Well, why didn't _you_ think of it?”

“I am admittedly not at my best, right now.”

Dean made a gruff noise of acceptance, followed by silence, thoughtful and a little charged. “D'you think maybe this is a good time to consider laying off the drink?”

“Probably,” Cas laughed. It was the furthest thing from his mind, though; all he could think of was undoing this foul knot and getting them out of here, although to where, he wasn't sure. It was a long trek and he wasn't sure they could steal horses. They could just wander the landscape, he figured, as long as they were together. Nothing else really mattered, past that. Not for him, anyway.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Would you?”

“Hah. Maybe.”

“For me?”

“Oh my god, I got it.” Cas laughed, feeling the rope fall apart in his fingers, the knot undoing itself easily against his assault. “Dean, move your arms, do it quick, I don't know how long we've got.”

“You actually – oh, you did it,” Dean laughed too, mirth and awe, wriggling his arms until they came free. “I can't believe you actually did it.”

“Do your legs now, come on,” Cas urged him, moving and thumping his chair against the floor, nothing but excitement coloring him now. He couldn't see but out of the corners of his eyes, but after a few moments, Dean stood up. Of course, he sat right down again with a hand to his head and a surprised grunt, but after that, he was on his feet for good.

Cas felt like he was looking at the sun as Dean came around and stood in front of him. A battered and bruised sun, sure, but nothing had ever filled him with so much joy.

“My god, your face,” Dean grimaced, leaning down, his calloused fingertips gently brushing over what Cas knew had to be a series of terrible shiners.

“Is it an improvement?”

“How bad does it hurt?”

“Does it matter? Just...just untie me.”

Dean nodded, narrowing his eyes in thought. Slowly, gingerly, like he was thinking it through, he lowered until he sat on Cas's lap, face to face. “I know it was just a day – not even. And I know we were just sitting back to back, but I missed you. Isn't that weird?”

Cas huffed a laugh and nodded. “Powerful weird. Course, if I feel the same way, what's that mean?”

“We're both weird. _This_ is weird,” Dean said, and he was right, to a degree. It was. It would be, no matter what, but the soft weight of the sheriff sitting on him, his rough fingertips against Cas's tender face, strange or not, it made him feel good.

Dean kissed him like that, astride him, kissed him gently and softly and all those other adjectives a girl might want, out of a kiss. Cas sighed against him, closed his eyes and forgot where they were, made himself forget, just for a moment while they were joined together like that.

When he pulled back, Cas wanted it again but he could barely move, just chased Dean futility with his mouth and found no reward. “I was gonna say, earlier, we should stay together, like you said,” Cas forced out hurriedly, a rush of breath so Dean couldn't possibly get the wrong idea before something terrible happened this time. “I don't care if we go to a city or another goddamned continent. D'you really want that? D'you wanna just stay with me, Dean? If you don't, you can just leave me here because – because there's nothing else for it. For me, I mean.”

Cas rambled as Dean reached behind him, biting at his lip as he worked the knots undone. Too late, Cas remembered all the tools on the walls, rusty though they were, they could probably have sliced through the rope faster but then...Dean so close, on his lap, wound around him, even if it was for the last time.

“Dean?” Cas prompted, wary of the silence. “I said too much. I coulda said more. Coulda really embarrassed myself, I guess.”

“Shush up,” Dean muttered, letting the rope fall free from around Cas's wrists as he leaned in for another kiss.

This time, Cas got to throw his arms around him, to card through that thick hair, to squeeze at Dean's strong back and tug him even closer so there was no space, nothing in between them. Not ever again, he hoped.

“Christ,” Cas sighed when they parted again, when Dean slid off to work the ropes on his ankles, “Christ almighty, Dean, I'm...I love you.”

That had to be too much, but he didn't care.

Dean looked up, and outside, guns started firing, far off and then close. Doubly fast, Dean undid him, helped him up and grabbed his hand. On the way out, he tipped the lantern into the dry hay.

They stepped into the middle of a fray, the shadows of men on horses – a veritable army – just out beyond the fences, while men near them shouted instructions impatiently. Behind them, the barn went up in a hot whoosh, and they ran with danger at their backs.

 


	7. Chapter 7

It'd been hours of waiting for the signal. Deputy Fitzgerald took on third watch and not particularly high alert. The fire at the center of the encampment burned low and the coffee was nearly finished. He got up and got another pot going, fresh beans and chicory mixing with the water from his canteen. The pot shone orange in the embers.

Just as it boiled, throwing up a puff of steam and letting forth a loud gurgle, the sky went orange, too, just off to the south, south-east.

He swore under his breath, mourning for the coffee he'd never drink, kicking dirt on the fire embers until they died, while his partner in the watch hooted and rang the bell.

Men crawled out of tents, wiped the sleep on their eyes even as they mounted up the horses, and the others cleaned up quick behind him, winding up the tents as the others moved out, leaving nary a trace of the encampment that'd been waiting all night, and before that, for two straight weeks further north.

They rode quick, unencumbered and mindful of their destination, dark-clothed so they blended right with the shadows.

A few miles out, once the ranch that was apparently their target came into view, so did their boss for this job, Miss Jo Harvelle, cutting a dashing but petite figure astride her own horse.

“Arrest whoever you can. We're mainly after the governor and Mayweather. If you see Sheriff Winchester or Cas Novak, let them go peacefully, you hear? Causalities to a minimum.”

As pep-talks went, it was all they needed. Mercenaries tended to be at the ready, no matter what, for a good purse. And the Harvelles always provided that.

The deputy was to the back of the flank when the firing started; confusion overtook their targets quickly, making the fight all the harder, as they fired aimlessly at the riders.

The barn started burning, too, going up quick as they always did, silhouette the men that shot at them, and others besides; in the chaos and confusion, the deputy saw two men, hands held, running from the fracas, and he let them slip away, hopefully to something better.

* * *

 

The shadows of the night gave way as Cas and Dean trudged over the landscape. It'd been pitch dark when they left the ranch, the only light from the barn crumbling in flames and the firefight they'd narrowly escaped.

Then they walked. It could have been worse, Dean reminded first himself, and then the both of them, talking out loud as they went. “We got shoes, we got shirts on our backs.” Still, it was cold comfort compared to how much better it would be if they just had some water. Or, in Cas's case, some whiskey.

“Smart thing woulda been to follow those train tracks,” Dean muttered as the sky pinkened, dropping his hand from Cas's to wipe off the fresh sweat sticking them together. If it was this hot with the sun just coming up, he knew it'd only get worse as the day dawned.

“They coulda followed us,” Cas said, his voice even more hoarse for all the exertion, for the roughest goddamned night either of them had faced. “And it was dark. You did the right thing. Hill's at our backs. Can't take much longer before the town creeps up on us.”

“Jo and I rode a while. Long damn time. Felt like an eternity.”

“Well, it can't have been an actual eternity, so take comfort in that.”

Dean sighed, didn't say anything back, and tried.

At least they were together. He had that.

They were together and they were out of the worst of the mess, which had been vastly more complicated than he expected. That, hopefully, Jo would deal with. Law and insurance were two different things, but if it came down to it, Dean knew he'd do the right thing. He had to. That was just how he was, that was how life was supposed to be. You did the right thing.

Dean knew he'd done the right thing bringing Cas Novak into his home. Even if it felt strange at first, even if it led to other entanglements, he knew in his gut that he'd had to shelter him and knew now that he'd probably be swinging from the oak tree by the graveyard if he hadn't followed those instincts.

Too bad they didn't extend to charting the wild untamed land outside the town.

Soon enough, foliage started to come into view, receding from the shadow as the rising sun cast everything in roses and golds. It looked planted and planned and they both quickened their steps getting to it.

By the time they were in the thick of it, an orchard of all things, the sun tinted the world orange.

Cas broke away from him, half a step ahead, ruffling the leaves of one tree that smelled immensely sweet and looked beautiful, too, dotted with white blossoms. “It's oranges,” Cas said, a relieved grin sliding slow over his tanned face. He plucked one out of the green like magic, throwing it to Dean.

Dean followed all through the trees, a smile growing on his face too, as Cas tossed him everything there was; peaches and apples and sweet little oranges. Though the plants looked healthy, they were untended too, an orchard left to grow by its own laws and thriving for it.

An old oak tree settled in the middle of the perfect rows of smaller trees, unshorn, with branches like benches sticking out and half into the well-meant rows of fruits, it's mass of leaves a perfect canopy. Before Cas finished gathering fruits, Dean climbed up into one of the crooks and peeled the orange, grateful for anything to eat at this point.

Cas darted around with a renewed kind of energy, filling his upturned shirt with mostly peaches, admittedly, but a few pink apples here and there. He knew what he liked, clearly. Dean took delight in just watching, his lithe form moving quick. The sun came up more and more as Cas went, revealing every bruise, every spot of blood against his clothes but revealing a familiar, pleasant form that Dean yearned to have beside him, suddenly.

“C'mon, take a break,” Dean called, and Cas came over with a smile, his face sticky from peaches, his fingers dripping too. “You are such a mess,” Dean laughed but he meant no malice. He loved the mess, somehow, all of it.

“Peaches, Dean,” Cas just laughed back, clamoring up next to Dean. There was room enough for them side by side, but Cas jammed as close as he could anyway. He smelled sweet and lovely despite all the sweat and the exertion, the beatings and the blood. “This is a mighty fine orchard.”

“It is. It's a lucky orchard. No water but we can go on a few more hours.”

“Can we rest?” Cas asked, mouth half full. Under the increased light, Dean saw the green in his face more clearly than ever, the dark circles under his eyes, in the hollows of his cheeks. His hand, bringing the half-eaten peach to his full lips, trembled and Dean frowned.

“Yeah, Cas, we'll rest up a bit. Get our strength back.”

“Y'know, you can make a kinda wine outta peaches? Gotta leave 'em in a jar for a while, let 'em ferment. It ain't exactly _good_ but it hits the spot in a pinch. You know, in jail or whatever.”

“You learn that in jail?”

“Nah. Some prostitute or other. Owner of the place had real strict rules, no drinking, no smoking, made 'em go to church and all. So this kid used to make himself and all the girls wine, under his bed. Tasted awful but every Sunday after church, they'd all get shit faced. That was back in the Dakotas, somewhere. South-ways.”

“You been up that far?” Dean said, suddenly aware of how little he knew about Cas. He carefully slung an arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer, desperate to know everything, all of a sudden.

“Been everywhere, Dean,” Cas sighed, resting his head against Dean's shoulder and relaxing. A few peaches and apples tumbled the few feet to the ground, likely bruising but it didn't matter. They had a bounty now. “Never been so happy though.”

“Even black-eyed?”

“Hell, even if they'd cut my feet off. I'd be happy here.”

Dean nodded. He understood but he didn't know what to do about it. He hadn't felt it in so long, that kind of contented happiness where you'd be good with whatever your lot in life was, but right here, in the oak, with the sun kissing the orchard and Cas trembling but snuggled against him, Dean understood a lot.

“D'you mean what you said, back there? In the barn?”

“I say a lotta crap, you gotta be more specific.”

“No, I don't.”

Cas snorted; he knew, Dean knew he knew, exactly what he meant. Still, a while passed before he said anything.

“Yeah, I meant it. Once in my life, I wasn't just drunk and running my fool mouth off. I know it was a stupid time to say anything. And too fast. I mean...way too fast. But I meant it.”

Dean swallowed, his throat caught around sweetness, around the fruit as much as the notion that, fast as anything, this rough trade actually meant it and _loved him_. How did that even happen? “I dunno how you came to it so fast. I'm...I mean, I got zero experience. I'm maudlin as all hell these days. I got you into a whole world of shit and now we're goddamned stranded. And you still - “

His voice broke and he shut his eyes, hating it, mortified. But he felt Cas squirm closer, felt a slightly sticky hand on his face and lips, after that, just at the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah, I still love you. Even if you get us lost out here and we waste away in the hills. Even then. I'm asking nothing in return, I hope you know that. Not a damn thing. You already gave me enough.”

“How 'bout I just get you home. You can ask that.”

“Home's yours. I'm -”

“Home's _yours_ ,” Dean said, a little more emphatically than he meant to but goddamn, it felt good, letting his voice shake like that. “My home wasn't even...wasn't anything, until you showed up. I lived in two rooms. I saw what you did with it. The cleaning it, top to bottom. I was gonna let it fall down around me but it's like you opened up the windows, let the light in.”

“Damn, Winchester,” Cas sighed out, twisting on the tree branch, half-reclining so Dean followed suit, finding the crook of the oak just perfect for the two of them to lay down like that, with Cas's warm, bruised head on Dean's aching chest. “That was almost sweet.”

“Aw, shush. It's not what you wanna hear, probably.”

“Right now, I just wanna hear that you're gonna be right here when I wake up.”

“You got that right. I got nowhere else to go, anyway.”

“You'd be surprised.”

“Nah. No more surprises.”

* * *

 

The rest did them good.

Poor though he felt, Cas was out like a light in a deep but dreamless sleep that he clearly needed. Some dreams might have been nice but nothing came. When he woke, still in the tree and in Dean's arms, that was dream enough.

The rest of the trudge felt like weeks, like months or years or like a slow current of time missing them, trapping them in some kind of terrible bubble where they'd never, ever get anywhere. Cas remembered getting water from a stream. Eating another few peaches and throwing half of it up. Remembered his legs turning to jelly, his brain too, so the only clear thing to do in his life was to follow Dean, a dark shape ahead of him.

Dean knew what to do, where they were going. Dean would save him, again and again apparently. When Cas fell down, Dean stopped to pick him up, and they passed the rest of the march crammed together, walking awkwardly with Dean's arms around his shoulder, buoying him up as best he could.

Cas wasn't sure if it was getting dark out again or if it was his vision dimming. Maybe both. Maybe he'd make Dean carry him the rest of the way and not by either one's choice.

“Oh my god,” Cas heard Dean swear and felt him stop moving forward. Cas managed to open his eyes but he couldn't see so well as Dean, not right now. “Cas, look,” Dean jostled him a little and Cas fought the withdrawal haze to focus.

The town, the town he'd ridden into not three days before stuck up against the dying light like it had in the sunrise, crooked teeth buildings but now he knew what they were, what they contained. There was a saloon and a brand new hotel, and the butcher shop, Dean's office and even his house.

God, that _house_ , with the room just for bathing, with the comfortable kitchen and the softest bed he'd ever laid his ragged ass on. Did Dean really want him to stay, or was that some kind of fever dream?

“You did it,” Cas rasped out, clinging to Dean with both arms, dreaming of a restful night, of a hot bath and a bottle of spirits.

“We did it, c'mon.”

Cas just nodded, shut his eyes and went along for the ride.

“Shit,” Dean muttered, stopped at the front walk. “There's lights. There's...”

“Lights?”

“In my house, yeah. Let's go 'round back.”

Cas didn't see them but he felt Dean haul him around to the back of the house and lean him against the sturdy luggage. He wondered absently what they'd do with it, now, if Dean would ever get rid of it. It made Cas wish he had a trunk of his own to haul in, just to look respectable. He hadn't had a trunk in years.

He missed, completely, Dean stalking in the house, unarmed, and just as soon missed him stalking back out.

“It's Jo. It's Jo and my deputy. Been waiting for us.”

“I'm afraid I can't play hostess to your friends at present.”

“I know, I know, just c'mon, I'll get you inside. They got food.”

“Long as it's not peaches.”

“It ain't peaches.”

It was a big round pot of stew, peas and ham and potatoes and Cas's stomach turned just smelling it warming over the kitchen stove. He thumped himself down at the table and put his head down, not even muttering a thanks. He couldn't. He hadn't gone so long in _so long_ without a drink and if this was drying up, he didn't want it. Besides that, his head still pounded and his feet ached and -

“I'll give you a proper ear in the morning – yeah he'll be fine – hit in the head one too many times – we both just need rest – thank you again.” Dean's voice floated in and out and finally, everything seemed done with, the back door shut, the uninvited guests gone.

“They sent out search parties for us,” Dean told Cas, amused. “Four of 'em. Guess we hid out too good.”

Cas grunted. That was all he could manage.

Minutes passed by slow or fast or not at all, and his ears only perked up to the sound of Dean uncorking a bottle. Even then, it was laborious as hell to raise his head.

“Really gets bad for you, don't it?” Dean asked,d his voice made soft by the tiredness, by everything.

Cas raised his head and saw he was half-dressed, pouring whiskey from a green bottle into a tin cup, staring at the flow of it.

Cas licked his cracked lips and felt his heart hammering. “I'm afraid of letting it get much worse,” he croaked out, giving Dean an honest explanation. “I've let it get worse and ended up on a doctor's cot, a contused head and a buncha confused memories. I don't want that to happen. But...but I know it's too much. The way I do it.”

“Mhmm. My dad had fits. Much as I loathe the man, he did try his best to stop, more than once. Got beyond him, I guess. Difference being you don't have a mean bone in your body, not even when you're off your ass.” Dean's throat bobbed in a hard swallow, staring at the tin and the bottle in his hand and then finally passing it across the table. “Go on. I hate seeing you like this.”

“I didn't want it to get so bad,” Cas sighed out, but it was too late now. He cradled the blue tin like it was the sweetest thing in the world, looked hopefully at the amber inside and hesitated no further in the drinking of it.

Of course it was frightening, the way it warmed him so fast. How good it made him feel, lighting up his limbs, making him feel right. He looked sheepishly at Dean, but there was no judgment, there. Just Dean, bruised face and slightly red from the sun, his freckles brought out all the more. Mostly, he looked tired, dirty, but relieved.

“I appreciate you indulging me. I know it's hard. I know...when you said, back at the barn, that I oughta stop - “

“Let's not right now, huh? You drink. Then I'm gonna drink. Then we're gonna eat and have a bath and go to bed in an actual bed and tomorrow morning, all this's gonna be right here to deal with, the whole lot of it. No sense in troubling ourselves over it early.”

Cas sighed in relief, feeling his whole body sag with it, reaching across the table to tuck his hand in with Dean's. His throat felt too tight to say it, what he wanted, but he felt it conveyed across the ether to Dean, and he felt it lick back double for him. That was what love was, wasn't it? It was there even in the silences.

* * *

 

Scrubbed, fed, relaxed as was possible, Dean and Cas made their way upstairs. Naked, again, with a couple blankets they'd used for towels slung nearby, they both sat down on the soft bed. Dean noticed they were doing things in tandem, now, just a little.

Except the drinking; Dean couldn't keep up with that, and he'd be a fool to try. Still, every now and then, he pried the bottle from Cas and took a mouthful and felt it warm his bones. He'd earned that, at least.

But now, he turned the lamp low and wrenched the bottle from Cas's lazy, loose fingers, set it by the bedside and watched the flame cast dimly over it; still half a bottle left. Good. That was good, that was plenty.

He looked back at Cas and found him watching the bottle too but in just a second, his big blue eyes fell back on Dean and the fire glinted there, too, even in the big swollen knot on the right side. Dean frowned looking at it, leaned in to brush his hand across Cas's face. It was tender, and they both were. They both were sore.

“This hurt?”

“Hm? Constantly, like,” Cas answered, dreamy-slow and tired, his eyes closing, head tilting relaxed into Dean's hand. “Jaw too. Damn near everything aches. Been a long time since I ended up a punching bag. Long time since I fought.”

“You didn't do much fighting back there, did you?” Dean teased him, knowing the reverse was too, true. “Not like I did either, 'cept a few licks. Then someone else came and took care of it. Weird feeling. Gettin' my mess swept up.”

“Our mess?”

“Our mess, yeah. Guess so.”

“What now?” Cas asked, his voice slow, just a hint of slur in the deepness. “I mean, besides us tumblin' into bed and sleeping for a week.”

“Two weeks,” Dean sighed out, half a laugh, half very much serious. “Told Miss Harvelle we'd talk to her down the Sheriff's office tomorrow. So there's that. And probably, I'll be there a while. Paperwork and...lord, I don't know what else. This ain't like catching a thief red-handed down at the general store or - “

“Or tanking a drunk from the saloon? Mhmm. Kinda outta your jurisdiction.”

“Sass-mouth.”

“My sass-mouth hurts fierce, actually.”

“Aw,” Dean crooned, but his did too. He leaned in, knocked their knees together and thumbed Cas's apparently sore lip, definitely puffy-red from the beating but still sweet-looking. He leaned in and kissed him slow, a hand on his chin, their mouths moving gentle, almost like the first time, almost like it'd been then.

Seemed ages ago, even though it was just three or so days.

Could've been months, for how Dean felt.

“That hurt?” he asked, lingering close, feeling Cas hum against his mouth.

“Not so bad.”

“Good. Y'know I wanna do more. Like...everything,” Dean said in a rush, suddenly aware that nothing was enough, not this little kiss, for sure, and not a million more. “But - “

“C'mon and lay down with me. Let's start there,” Cas said, stroking gentle at Dean's face now, urging him down onto the bed.

He went. He went easily and they curled around each other, like in the tree, like the nights before but different, now, for how much they needed that closeness.

Dena meant to kiss him more; Dean meant to never stop kissing him but sleep came first, like a heavy shroud, and he didn't think on anything again until the morning.

 


	8. Chapter 8

Dean woke up slow and warm. Definitely in a bed so that was an immediate improvement from the previous wake-up. The sun blared full in the window, heating up the bedroom, licking beams across his chest. And across Cas's face, nuzzled in there.

The bright light on his bruises accentuated the black and blue of them, already blossoming into a full menagerie of pain.

Dean sighed out of his nose and pushed back some of Cas's soft hair, revealing more marks. They'd really been through the wringer, last night and Dean felt it.

He felt, too, something ecstatic at having come through it, more or less intact, and with Cas still. No one hung. No one shot. Besides, maybe, some mild concussions, they were okay, and the feeling of freedom hit Dean square in the chest, made him smile wide and wider and it hurt like hell.

He tucked Cas closer, getting both arms around him, slithering down best he could to kiss at his bed mate. Even that seemed too chaste a term, lacking all the proper nuances their relationship had. Or would have.

Fighting back explanation, which only hurt his head more, Dean kissed at Cas's contused, sleeping face, gently over his cheeks and the corners of his mouth, down his sleep-mussed beard to his neck. There were a few silvery-pink scars there, Dean noticed, with the sun blaring full on him, and he ran his fingertips over them too.

Cas only vaguely stirred, made a quiet muttering sound that only got Dean smiling wider.

He pressed as close as he could as gently as he could, slipping his legs around Cas's, winding their bodies all together while he kissed up to Cas's mouth again. He had no plans, really, not yet. But the gentle stirring of Cas's cock against his thigh gave him more than a few.

“Hmm,” Dean hummed against Cas's neck, took in his smell and committed it once and for all into his memory.

He hoped he'd be forgiven for waking Cas up, if he ever got there, at least. He stirred, finally, when Dean skimmed a hand down his chest, down his hip and curled around his half-hard dick. He made a sweet, low noise, the sheets rustling as he turned into Dean's hand.

“Mornin' there,” Dean crooned against his skin, nipping gentle at his neck. Still nothing but sleepy noises but that was fine, they were lovely. Dean just moved closer, glued himself on to Cas so he could rub up against him, too, so he could cram their dicks together in his hand.

He groaned too loud and maybe that's what was woke Cas, or maybe it was the feeling, the same thing Dean felt; they could barely get closer than this.

Cas's eyelids fluttered like feathers on a breeze and his eyes opened slow, bleary and confused and narrow. He looked straight for Dean and Dean felt him relax. His jaw softened in a lazy smile and his head tipped back so Dean had to chase him down to kiss him the rest of the way awake.

“I said morning,” Dean mumbled, nibbling his lips, squeezing the two of them harder together. “Y'looked so good, I couldn't keep my hands off you.”

“Bet you didn't even try,” Cas joked, his voice little more than a ragged croak.

“Didn't try too hard. Then again...didn't have to do much before you started getting stiff here.”

“Oh, uh huh, I bet. Don't act like you're complaining.”

“”m not.”

Dean felt like he'd never complain again. This, first thing in the morning, this reassurance that Cas was on his side, that they were on the right page, this was something he knew he'd get fast addicted to.

“You know what you're doin' down there?” Cas asked in a gasp, his hips hitching into Dean, one of his hands working down between them too. It felt great, having Cas wrap his own hand around Dean's and soon, they started moving together, their hands and the rest of their bodies, moving faster in the mess they were making.

“Kinda self-explanatory,” Dean teased but his words had no punch behind them. Concentration came hard in a situation like this. “Wanted to do this last night. Or...wanted to fuck you. Or something.”

“We were bone-tired.”

Dean nodded, agreed, but still felt like they needed something to cement them together now, something to stake his claim on. “You wanna fuck me sometime?” Dean suggested, sudden without the aid of any kind of filter but he didn't regret it.

Especially not when it made Cas moan like that, and rut harder-faster against his hand.

“Are you kiddin'? Fucking – yes, goddammit, Dean. Gonna get you to bend over like, tonight,” Cas babbled against him, twisting to find his mouth. He plunged in tongue-first, nothing chaste about it. His other hand braced on Dean's chest, pushing hard, his fingertips digging in. “Gonna do it in the bed, right here. All soft-like, real tender.”

Dean didn't know why that hit him so good, why _that_ had him humping at the join of their hands, rubbing furtive and hard against Cas. He'd started it, but Cas ended it with that, somehow, and Dean shouted his orgasm out, like it tugged up from the depths of everything when he shot off between them.

“Yeah, just like that,” Cas kept talking, couldn't shut his mouth and Dean knew that already; it was better in bed than anywhere else, “Gonna make you shoot like that and then I'm – fuck,” Cas cut off only because Dean kissed him again, grabbed his face desperate and needy and that made Cas jerk hard, spilling suddenly too, in a blazing hot rush between them.

It was forever, forever of panting in each other's mouth's and gentle-sticky movements of their hands until they came down, until Dean at least stopped floating so high, although he was still somewhere in the clouds.

* * *

 

Duty called, of course.

Fresh-bathed and dressed well, Cas followed Dean to the sheriff's office. He was in some of Dean's clothes, which fit surprisingly well and looked incredible. And, even better, the navy blue suit smelled just like Dean, like leather and fresh herbs. Maybe he'd put off getting his own new clothes in favor of this indulgence.

There were a few coffins lined up outside the sheriff's office. Dean assured his this was normal but so to was Cas's nervous reaction to the nearness of corpses. Especially since he'd woken up next to one a fortnight or so ago. He wanted to feel Dean's hand on his , wanted the reassuring squeeze but Dean's hand on his shoulder worked well, too. Maybe all they could get so public.

The office bustled; two very official looking men sat with their legs crossed on two spare chairs. The deputy sat behind Dean's big desk and the petite blonde he knew to be some kind of mastermind of deception, Jo Harvelle, sat in trousers on the spare desk, her left arm wrapped in bandages. Everyone stood when they walked in, although Dean waved his hand abrupt as he took his hat off, gesturing for everyone to sit down.

It was in Cas's nature to be nerve-stricken around so many important looking people; sure, you met them in bars or whorehouses, but there, the footing was even. Here, not so much.

The proceedings passed by him quickly; there was a new badge for Dean, and handshakes and commendations for him and Jo Harvelle. Cas gathered that the boring looking men were even higher up than Dean, and that they didn't give two shits about him, thankfully, from the way their eyes glossed right over him.

He preferred it that way, anyway.

They left, and Cas took one of their chairs, unbuttoning the jacket, unused to wearing something even remotely presentable.

“Still sheriff,” Jo said to Dean, hopping off the counter to pat the badge on his chest. “Sorry about your telegraph.”

“That ol' thing,” Dean chuckled, and Cas looked to where the wire sat frayed on the ground. “There's one at the new hotel, anyway. I'll get messages there from now on. You'll keep me updated?”

“As much as I can. Confidentiality.”

“Right,” Dean drawled, moving to sit beside Cas on the spare chair. “Where you riding off too?”

“Ah, I'm stealing your deputy, I'm afraid, and we've got a camp to pay out and clean up.”

Cas watched Dean look to his trusted second but he seemed to have known.

“More money?” Dean said, and Fitzgerald nodded, shrugging.

“More action, too. I'm wasting away here. Novak here's the most interesting thing we've had in months. I'm over it.”

Dean pursed his lips and nodded, opening his hand for his former deputy to throw his badge. He tucked it into his pocket and waved them out the door.

“Well,” Cas sucked in a breath, looking around the room. It looked so much emptier now, just the two of them, the cells and the desks. “A lot of that went right over my head.”

“I've lost a deputy and we've got evidence to give. Mayweather's in jail over at the county. Governor too.”

“The coffins?”

“Random assortment of his hands and a couple of Jo's mercenaries, apparently. Operating right under my nose. She promised she'd be ore forthright, these coming days.”

Cas grunted assent, wondering what other kinds of private investigations she'd get them wrapped up in; Dean seemed to like it, in any case. “Just be safe about it.”

“Oh, you mean, don't go trudging headfirst into situations t get myself kidnapped? To rescue strange men O barely know but absolutely adore?”

“Right,” Cas smiled wryly, but the words made his heart race, “That.”

“I've lost a deputy,” Dean said again, pulling the badge from his pocket, turning it over in his hands and holding up to the light that streamed in from the open door and the front window. “But I'm wondering if the replacement isn't kicking around here somewhere.”

Cas stared at the badge, his mouth open slightly, wondering if he was understanding properly, the things Dean insinuated.

“Dean, I'm not - “

“Not what?”

Cas scowled and started over, leaning so his elbows rested on his knees. “I'm not the kinda guy you want to trust with responsibility. I can barely take care of myself, I don't know how you expect me to look after a town.”

“Let me look after you,” Dean said, his brow creased, clearly having given this enough consideration that he felt comfortable talking about it plain. “And trust me, the last guy did okay on somewhat less wits than you.”

“”Dean.”

“Cas. You gotta step up sometime.”

He knew Dean didn't mean it unkindly. And he knew the push was a good thing, something no one else might offer him anywhere, something he might not ever get out of life again. Still. He stood and paced a little, over to the jail cell, grabbing at the cool iron bars. Three days ago, he'd been there.

“Doesn't matter that I just came outta here?”

“Doesn't matter to me,” Dean said. Cas heard him get up, marked his boots moving across the floor and he turned, just as Dean came up in front of him. Dean wasted no time getting an arm around his waist, no care for the open door. “If you don't like it, you can quit. That includes me. But, c'mon. Try it out. Try us both out.”

It was hard as anything to formulate a response either way with Dean's eyes looking dark and sincere, evergreens blinking sweet at him. And his mouth so close, just begging to be kissed from the pout he affected.

“Goddammit, Winchester,” Cas muttered, a hand up on Dean's face before he kissed him. “Put it on me. Put your goddamned badge on me and watch me ruin your damn town.”

“Gladly,” Dean laughed, and he fastened the thing on Cas's lapel, that was really Dean's lapel, after all, and he tugged him close by his collar, kissing him hard again.

They didn't stop until Cas sagged back against the bars of the cell, biting cool into him, a strange companion to the intense heat of Dean Winchester on the front of him.

The whole town could've stomped by the door and they wouldn't have heard a thing.

* * *


End file.
